


Blonding

by EndoplasmicPanda



Category: Naruto
Genre: Action/Adventure, Family, Family Drama, Family Fluff, Gen, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-27
Updated: 2017-06-24
Packaged: 2018-07-18 12:31:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 22
Words: 176,761
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7315345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EndoplasmicPanda/pseuds/EndoplasmicPanda
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Minato Namikaze, the wet-behind-the-ears Fourth Hokage, is still trying to acclimate to his demanding new job. With the prospect of starting a family on the horizon, how will he react to a strange blond boy and his orange-loving father appearing in the middle of his office one afternoon? Post-4th-War-Hokage!Naruto and Boruto timetravel fic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

 

**Blonding - A Time Travel Fic**

**Chapter 1**

* * *

Minato Namikaze yawned.

_Paperwork._

Why was there always so much _damned paperwork?_

He sighed and stood up, grimacing at the piles that seemed to expand in every possible direction.

"No sense in trying to get any work done while I'm distracted like this," he mumbled to the empty office. Fumbling with a pen for an hour and a half was certainly not productive, even though it looked like he was working his way through the constant stream of mission reports and budget analyses at a decent pace.

He needed a break.

Looking around the room one last time, he had to admit that the space at the top of the Hokage Tower, the one reserved for him once he took office, still had a ways to go before he could properly call it _his_ office. The building still smelled like paint, but that was a worthy price to pay in order to cover over the gaudy neutral colors that his predecessor had insisted on using to decorate – and replace it with a calming, faded red. The Third had claimed that the beige helped sooth him, and helped him stay more productive, but from what Minato had seen of the old Sarutobi in action, he doubted it very much. It seemed like all the geezer ever did was smoke his pipe and write mediocre poetry.

Minato smirked to himself. No wonder he wanted to pass off his hat so much.

But no.

He was willing to put up with the smell of the paint and the drywall and the lacquer and the new furniture – because this was _his_ office now. Not the old fart's, not the Senju's, not the Uchiha's; hell, not even his wife's.

Although, he had to admit that the choice of color for the room was loosely inspired by her.

He ran a tired hand through the blond spikes that were stacked haphazardly atop his head like felled logs, smoothing them down momentarily before they shot back up into the air again like they were before, seemingly untouched. The inauguration had been a week ago, and he was _still_ getting used to the fact that people were addressing him as "Lord Fourth" or "Hokage-sama" instead of his name, like normal. It would take a while to get acclimated to it, but it was just a simple little thing that he had caught himself fixating on from the very beginning.

At least Kushina and Kakashi still called him by his name. That was all he needed, to be honest.

He finally sharpened his unfocused eyes, and looked down at his overloaded desk with apprehension; the mountain of paperwork balanced on every available surface definitely hindered his resolve. He leaned over and started to shuffle a few of the loose leafs of paper around across his desktop, before he finally found what he was looking for…

…a small, bronze-wrapped photograph of the love of his life.

He held it tenderly for a few moments, reminiscing on the fond memories of their youth:

…the day she came into his academy class and proudly announced that she would be the first female Hokage, and then promptly beat up the kids that told her otherwise…  
…the day she called him a girl; the first time, at least…  
…the time they ran into each other (literally) in front of a rather innocuous little ramen stand…  
…the moment he realized he seriously, really loved her…  
…the day he came to her rescue when Hidden Lightning ninja kidnapped her…  
…the day _she_ realized that _she_ seriously, really loved _him_.

His heart fluttered a little bit in his chest just thinking about it.

Kushina.

Minato set the photograph atop of a precariously perched stack of genin and chuunin mission reports, before turning his attention to the village behind his desk, framed beautifully behind an array of long, wide windows that wrapped all the way around the far side of the office. A swirl of leaves floated by as he stepped up to the one closest to his desk - which had the best view, in his opinion.

The Village Hidden in the Leaves… _his_ village.

The treetops danced in the late afternoon breeze, blitzing the earth beneath them in a beauty of lambent light and warmth. Rows upon rows of asymmetrically placed buildings and shops girdled the soft brown gravel streets below as they wound through the heart of the village; a glowing highway of bustling citizens, bored shinobi and playing children.

He watched one particular group of them as they chased after a small red ball, weaving in and out of the legs of passerby as they hurried home for the evening. Some of the villagers shouted after them, waving a fist in the air, telling them to watch where they were going; but even Minato, from way up above them, could see the warm smile on their faces as they turned back around.

_The Will of Fire._

He diverted his attention to the soft white cloth that stretched down his back and billowed out at his ankles. A cursory glance from this perspective would grant him only a flicker of red flame near the foot of the cloak, but he knew that it was much more than that.

With a small _snap_ , the clasp the held the coat around his neck was undone, and Minato gracefully removed it in one fluid motion. He would _never_ tell _anyone_ that he actually had been practicing this move in anticipation – or anxiety – for the two or so weeks leading up to his inauguration. The only person that knew about it was Kushina, but that was only because she barged into their bathroom while he was half naked one morning, doing it over and over again in front of the mirror.

He blushed a little at that, as he held the coat in his hands and traced a few blood-red kanji that were carefully stitched into the back with a skill beyond his years.

_Fourth Hokage._

He shivered just looking at it – looking at the physical manifestation of his dream. He had wanted to be the one that people looked up to, the one that kept his people safe, since he was a child.

The one that kept the hearth of fire within the Hidden Leaf flourishing and healthy.

He smiled, and looked back down at the gaggle of children beneath him, still trying to go after their lost ball as it rolled and bounced and flipped through the air under the feet of the many villagers. His fingers continued to stroke the kanji for 'fire' absentmindedly as he did so, already lost in thought.

The thought of children was certainly one that egged at the back of any mid-twenties married couple's minds, and Minato and Kushina were no different. There had been many heated discussions regarding the matter, and it was one that Minato was hesitant towards in the beginning.

But after Kushina's persistent nagging and prodding, he finally gave in to the tiny voice in the back of his mind that had been chomping at the bit to raise a family – a _proper_ family.

He wouldn't give his children the same experience that he or Kushina had to endure throughout their childhoods. Not on his watch, as the Hokage of the Hidden Leaf.

Just like he'd do his best to watch over each and every one of those children playing down at the foot of the tower.

He frowned, and turned his attention back to the cloak that was sprawled out over his arms, and at the clenched fist that was now wrapped solidly around the 'fire' kanji in a fervor of determination. He instantly let it go, for the sake of his coat, before he slyly threw it back over his shoulders and allowed it to settle behind him, not minding too much one way or another that a few pieces of paper on his desk fluttered to the floor from the air currents.

 _Click_.

With the cape firmly back over his form, high collars flanking either side of his face in a rather exuberant fashion, he took a few steps towards his office door, determined to go out and see his village firsthand.

The paperwork could wait.

* * *

"Hokage-sama! Hokage-sama!"

A young boy, one that couldn't have been more than eight or nine years old, came running up to Minato as he completed another slow walk along the less crowded paths in the village. He immediately jumped in front of the man and bowed his head deeply, a huge grin on his face.

"Iruka, please. There's no need for that," Minato said with a warm smile, before he leaned down and ruffled the hair of the scar-faced child softly.

Iruka frowned indignantly, crossing his arms in front of his chest as he did so. "Hey! Cut it out! It's bad enough when my mom does it…" he pouted, turning to the side to avoid looking at the blond-haired man in the eye.

_Although…_

He pursed his lips in a mischievous manner, as he slowly turned his head and moved his eyes up the body of the Fourth Hokage.

Standard issue, black shinobi sandals.

A pair of calves, each bandaged in a soft-white gauze that wrapped under his shoes and up into his simple blue pants.

The aforementioned blue pants.

A brilliantly vibrant – and surprisingly clean – white cloak, adorned with an embroidered ring of fire that wrapped around the base of the cloth.

A pair of battle-hardened, yet still kind and inviting, peach-colored hands, loosely set beneath two dark grey sleeves that wrapped up and underneath the cloak.

A forest green jounin-level flak jacket, pockets and shoulderguards obscured by the cloak as well.

A high-collared neck; one that led up to –

A pair of warm, loving, _kind_ azure-blue eyes. If a pair of eyes could smile, Minato's would be grinning from ear-to-ear. But it was more than that: they seemed to pierce his very being, and look into his soul, unadulterated, and warm the coils of his heart from the inside out.

Iruka's face immediately began to heat up in embarrassment as he felt the Hokage's gaze meet his, and he looked away immediately.

"Now, now, Iruka, what's with the visual patdown?" Minato softly chuckled, bending over and placing a hand on the boy's shoulder. "Is there something wrong?"

"N…no… I was just…" Iruka stuttered, trying to come up with a good excuse.

Minato just laughed, a little harder this time, as he gripped the boy's shoulder in an effort to stabilize himself as he stood again. As soon as he was back on his feet again, he immediately released him, once again diverting Iruka's gaze up to the man's eyes.

"Would you like to grab something to eat? I'm starving; haven't eaten anything today," he said with another smile, before guiding Iruka along beside him, not waiting for an answer.

Iruka looked up at Minato blithely as they walked, trying to think about what to talk about. The silence between them was definitely comfortable, but Iruka still couldn't help but feel uneasy for taking up the time of such an important person in the village.

Finally, his brain made a contact and he blurted out, "Wait, where are we going?"

Minato patted him on the back, and looked down at him with another grin. "It's a little ramen place that's just up ahead! I go there all the time."

Sure enough, a small booth with a few kanji-adorned pieces of cloth in front came into view, and the pair of Leaf citizens approached happily.

Minato plopped down in the seat to the far left with a long, satisfied sigh, and Iruka, not knowing how to proceed politely in the situation, followed suit with a gulp. He didn't want to step all over the man's kindness.

"What'll it be, Hokage-sama?" came the voice of an old man from behind the counter, holding a small noodle strainer in his hand as he turned and greeted the pair. He looked down at the boy, and smiled warmly. "Oh, and who's this?"

"My dinner guest for the evening," Minato smiled. "And I'll have the regular, Teuchi."

"Of course! Coming right up!" Teuchi raised the strainer in affirmation, before turning to Iruka. "And how about yourself?"

"Uhhhh…"

Iruka spaced for a moment, trying to quickly remember the types of ramen that he knew of, or even the ones that he liked in particular. After what felt like an eternity, he blinked, and quickly said, "I… I'll have the same!"

"Alright!" Teuchi said with another smile, before beginning to turn around. "Two extra-spicy flaming miso ramen bowls coming right up."

"Wait, what!?" Iruka jumped, as the two men laughed and shook their heads.

* * *

"I'm home!"

The door to the Namikaze residence _clicked_ shut a moment later, as the soft sounds of sandals being removed rustled throughout the house.

Then, suddenly, there was the rushing sound of a pair of feet-on-tile as they whipped around the corner from the kitchen and into the entryway.

"OOF!"

"WELCOME HOME!"

Minato fell backwards onto the closed door, partially-removed shoes flying through the air as Kushina practically tackled him with a bear hug.

"Ow! Did you have to do that?" Minato whined a bit, rubbing the back of his head that had made contact with the door in an exaggerated manner.

She socked him in the shoulder, before pulling him up by the collar of his flak jacket and into a brief kiss.

"Welcome home," she said more softly, as she broke the kiss and helped him back up to his feet properly.

"It's good to be home," he said completely truthfully.

Kushina's eyes suddenly lit up like fireworks as realization clicked in her brain. "Oh! I almost forgot! Dinner is almost ready…" her eyes turned mischievous as she turned back towards the kitchen, " _Hokage-sama._ "

"Aww, I get enough of that already at work," he pouted playfully, before following her in and sitting down at the table across from where Kushina was now brandishing a pot filled with steaming hot rice.

For most people, the sight of the Red-Hot Habanero wielding a weapon – or something that could be misconstrued as a weapon – was enough to send them packing. But Minato couldn't care less – all he could care about was food. _Her_ food.

He may have already eaten a bowl of ramen with Iruka, the academy student, earlier that day. But nothing, not even a full stomach, would stop him from putting away several plates of his wife's delicious homemade cooking.

It almost made the pain and suffering of paperwork throughout the day worth it…

… _almost._

"Eat up!" she said with a grin as she heaped a large pile of steaming vegetables and beef onto the pile of rice stacked up like a mountain amid his plate.

"With pleasure!" he said, breaking his chopsticks and beginning to eat.

Several minutes of comfortable silence stretched between the two, as the two of them together decimated the pot of food on the stovetop before it could even _think_ about getting cold. Minato ate with a respectable grace, while Kushina… didn't.

After a few more minutes of silent chewing, Kushina looked up from her messy place at the table and smiled over at her husband. "Sooooo… how was work today? Now that you're the big shot Hokage?"

Her teasing was in jest when it came to him, unlike most of the people she interacted with. Minato paled at the thought of going grocery shopping with her; there was no doubt in his mind that she would curse out anyone and everyone that had the audacity of even _thinking_ of getting in her way as she did her thing. He made the mistake of going into a 24-hour convenience store with her one night for some ice cream, and nearly had to reattach the arm of the poor shopkeeper when Kushina learned they were all out of Rocky Road.

He shook his head visibly, much to Kushina's confusion, as he grounded himself and smiled back at her. "You know I've only been the Hokage for a week now. It's been nothing but paperwork for the past lifetime…" Minato grumbled that last bit, pouting again lightheartedly.

He typically didn't act like this around other people, but Kushina tended to bring out this side of him – the side that even he himself wasn't sure existed after his participation in the Third Great Shinobi War a few years before - if you could call destroying an entire battalion of Stone ninja singlehandedly mere participation.

"Yeah, so? You're the _Hokage_ now!" she said with a warm admiration in her eyes. "You had better do a damn good job keeping that seat warm, because once you get bored with it and go off to create some new fancy jutsu in all your spare time, I'm taking it for myself!" She pounded her hand on the table, causing the plates and bowls to rattle all over the place, sending crumbs and pieces of rice flying through the air and onto the carpet. "Hell yeah, y'know!"

Minato couldn't help but laugh at his wife's crazy antics – she was the light of his life. Whatever emotional battery he consistently drained down while at work was always immediately recharged the instant he opened that door and smelled her lavender-scented hair from across the house.

"What's so funny?" Now it was Kushina's turn to pout childishly. Although Minato had to admit that she far, _far_ outclassed him on that front. He simply put on a mask of ignorance, looking over his shoulders behind him as if to find some third person, before turning around and looking back at her in shock. "Who, me?" he pointed to himself dumbly, barely constraining a cheeky grin before it grew across his face.

He loved this girl.

Kushina laughed this time, before leaning over the table and socking him again in the shoulder.

"Ow, hey!"

"You deserved that one, you doofus," she said with a giggle, before settling back and patting her belly with one hand, while stifling a burp with the other. "Whew, I'm stuffed," she said with a grimace as the food settled in her stomach.

Minato rolled his eyes with a smile and shook his head. "You know, I'm starting to really wonder who wears the pants in this relationship."

Kushina didn't bother to move; only looking his way and raising an eyebrow. "You're figuring this out now?" Then, she broke out in a fit of laughter that bounced off the walls of the kitchen and reverberated through Minato's heart. He couldn't help but join in.

After the two of them calmed down, Kushina wiped the tears from her eyes and sighed. "Ahh, that was a good one." Suddenly, her eyes narrowed in indignation, as she looked at the freezer with poorly suppressed curiosity. "Say, do we have any ice cream?"

Minato immediately paled before gulping and shaking his head. "Ehrm, I think you finished it off yesterday," he said sheepishly, rubbing the back of his head in nervousness.

"Hmmph." Kushina slumped back in her chair, crossing her arms and frowning like a child. "Oh well."

A few moments of comfortable silence hung in the air, while Minato shook his head and began to gather up their dishes and taking them to the sink. He took off his cloak carefully, draping it over the back of his chair, before donning a small, grey apron and getting to work on washing their plates and silverware.

As the water hissed from the sink, Minato neglected to hear the chair behind him shift slightly, nor did he notice as his wife slowly walked up behind him.

Naturally, then, he jumped when she wrapped her arms around his chest from behind, enveloping him in a tight hug. He immediately decompressed, releasing any of his nervousness from the sudden 'attack' like a balloon in the wind.

He flipped the faucet off and turned in her arms to hug her back properly, before looking down at her.

There was no other word for it. She was just plain _happy._

"Hey, Minato? Can I ask you a question?"

Her happiness evaporated immediately, giving way to nervousness. He could tell by the way she worded it, and the fact that she was being much more polite than usual, that this was a serious question – one that she had been chewing on all dinner long. (1)

"Of course you can. What's got you bothered?" He said with a smile, wiping the stray red hairs out of her face.

"Well… you know how we decided that we wanted to have children?" she began slowly. A paleness creeped its way onto Minato's face, but she only laughed and lightly tapped him on the forehead with her palm. "It's not that, you silly. We still have a ways to go before _I'm_ even ready to be pregnant. You have nothing to be worried about."

Minato couldn't help but let a small sigh escape from his lips. Becoming the Fourth Hokage, _and_ getting news that you were a father in the same week? That would just be too much.

Kushina's continued question broke him out of his thoughts. "Well, I was just wondering…" she fidgeted a bit I his arms, "…what you would want to name the baby, if we had one."

He blinked. ' _That's what she was so worked up about asking me? What, is she afraid I'm going to name the kid after ramen or something?'_

"Uhh…" he started, obviously not sure how to answer the question. Kushina immediately jumped back, a look of guilt and embarrassment on her face.

"Don't worry! You don't have to answer it now," she said apprehensively, hands raised in front of her in a calming manner. ' _Does she really think I'm going to get MAD at her for asking?'_

Minato gave one of his trademark smiles – one of the ones that could warm the cockles of even the devil's heart. (2)

He walked over and wrapped his arms around her in a quick embrace, before pulling away from her, hands on her shoulders.

"Why on earth did you think that I wouldn't want to answer that question?"

She twitched a little under his prying eyes. Their power was not lost on anyone, least of all Kushina.

She could do little to resist their warm and tender gaze.

"IwasworriedyouweregonnaaskmewhatIwantedtonameitandIdon'tknowandit'sscaryandI-"

Her mouth went into overdrive, trying to spit out the string of words that her brain was producing at a speed that put the Flying Thunder God to shame. She kept going, and Minato just watched her as she went along, her eyes pressed shut.

"-verbeengoodatstufflikethis y'know? And I'mjustworriedthatI'mgonnapickabadname andourchildisgonnagrowupbeingbulliedorharrassedandit'llbeallmyfau-"

Her eyes shot open as Minato silenced her with a kiss, much to her surprise. She melted a little in his arms, before he moved back a bit and smiled at her.

"You don't have to be nervous. I won't get mad at you, I promise. I don't really have any ideas right now," he scratched the back of his head again sheepishly, "but I'd love to hear what you had in mind?"

He phrased the last part of his question in an attempt to help curb her anxiety and self-doubt. From the sigh of relief and slight smile that appeared on her face, Minato internally sighed as well.

"Menma."

Minato blinked. "I beg your pardon?"

Now she looked agitated. "Menma, y'know! That's my name suggestion." She mumbled the last part, as if she didn't want to admit to even herself.

Why was she so ashamed?

"What, like the ramen topping?" It was well known that Kushina _loved_ ramen. Minato was a fan as well, but nowhere close to the level of fanaticism that his wife had for Teuchi and his humble stand. He thought about suggesting a name ramen related in jest, once the topic came up, just to make her laugh, but he wasn't expecting her to be _seriously_ contemplating it.

Nor was he expecting the question so soon.

But it made sense, now that he thought about it.

Kushina cringed, and Minato immediately realized that he had said that with a little more uncertainty than he had meant to. _'Boy, I bet she is beating herself up something fierce inside her mind right now.'_

"If you don't like it, you can just sa-"

"I love it."

Kushina blinked, and looked back up into her husband's smiling eyes. "What?" she mouthed in shock, her voice apparently not working.

He leaned in to kiss her again, before giving her a big bear hug. "I said I love it, silly. Menma is a great name."

He could physically feel the anxiety leave her body and pass through him into the night sky. It was a strange feeling, but he quickly composed himself when he felt her completely relax in his arms, all of her worries, her doubts, her insecurities leaving with it.

It was a magical feeling, and he couldn't help but squeeze her tighter with a smile.

"Thank you, Minato."

He blushed a little at the absolute sincerity behind those words, and was about to pull away from her to look her in the eye, like he always did, when she returned the hug with just as much, if not more intensity than he did.

"Oof! Don't… mention it… suffocating… me…" he croaked from within her frightening strength, and she immediately released him.

He took a few deep breaths, before grinning down at her sheepishly.

"We still have a while, you know. Neither of us are quite ready to be parents, so if you come up with something better before then, then we can talk about it further?" She looked up at him inquiringly, seeking his approval, which he readily gave.

"Of course," he smiled. "But Menma is great. For now, that's choice number one. We can add more to the list when we think of them."

"Great!" she exclaimed, jumping up and pecking him on the cheek, wrapping her arms around his neck.

He pulled her in for another hug, before the two pulled apart once more. Minato turned to get back to the dishes, but a hand on his arm stopped him, and he turned to look at her again.

She had a look in her eyes – one the Minato knew too well. It was a look of hunger. _Infatuation._ His heart skipped a beat, and he nearly dropped a plate on the ground. "…Wh…whuh?" he said dumbly, as she smiled at him seductively.

Kushina leaned up to his ear quietly, and Minato just stood there like a scarecrow, not sure what to do. (3)

When he felt her hot breath on his ear, his own breath hitched, and he had to brace himself on the countertop in front of him.

He could feel her smile as she began to speak.

"Take me to go get ice cream. I want some damn Rocky Road."

* * *

Minato sat in bed; lamp on, book open. It happened to be his favorite read – and he always went to sleep with its message implanted in his mind, in order to mentally prepare him for the next day's work.

He turned a bit, pajamas rustling under the sheets, and looked over to where Kushina was resting beside him, a large (and empty) tub of ice cream lying on its side on her nightstand, dripping what was left of the chocolatey concoction all over.

As if she knew he was watching her, she belched loudly in satisfaction, and tossed a gnawed-upon spoon into the empty bucket, causing it to rattle and fall to the floor, face down.

"Damn, that was good," she said with a groan, stretching her back as she prepared to go to sleep.

Minato only chuckled to himself, before returning to his book. This was his favorite part, after all.

_If there is peace in this world, I will find it._

Minato stared at the pages of the book, lost in thought, as he scanned through. Suddenly, one particular paragraph, one that hadn't caught his eye particularly before, rang out to him like the call from an angel.

_Wh… who are you? What is your name?_

Minato put the book down.

"Naruto."

Kushina blinked, not quite asleep yet. "Huh?" she grumbled, before turning around to look her husband in the eye.

What she saw was something she called his 'Hokage face' – his eyes were narrowed at no one in particular, and his mouth was pursed closed in a line. He was concentrating on something, and from the looks of it, it was something big.

"Naruto," he repeated, still looking at the wall. Finally, he broke the connection with the invisible person, and looked down at her. His eyes began to twinkle in the light, and he smiled so sincerely that it made Kushina's heart melt.

Still, she was half asleep, and was exhausted. "Yeah, that's the character from that book that Jiraiya wrote, right? It wasn't bad – at least, it was better than that pervy smut he's pumping out nowadays." She grumbled and sat up a bit, rubbing her eyes with a yawn.

"Naruto," Minato whispered.

And that's when something clicked in Kushina's brain, and she shot awake like a bullet. Her eyes drifted to her husband's, who was still eyeing her with a glimmer of hope.

And happiness.

"Naruto," she whispered back, wide-eyed.

"Naruto!" Minato shouted happily, wrapping his arms around Kushina.

She started laughing, hugging Minato back tightly.

He joined her shortly, and they just sat there, content with the world, as their laughter died down.

"Naruto," she replied with a beaming smile, nestling under Minato's arm, before she felt something warm and heavy connect with her head, followed by the soft sounds of unconsciousness.

She looked up at the blond man, careful not to disturb his rest. His head had fallen sideways onto her own when he fell asleep from pure exhaustion, his face mirroring her expression of utter peace. She eased away from him and forced him further down the bed into a proper sleeping position.

With another warm grin, she leaned up against him and fell asleep as well.

They had made their choice.

* * *

Minato sniffled in boredom as his eyes swept over yet _another_ budget proposal. This one was for the academy's taijutsu department. He shook his head and stamped it, asking himself how a department that is supposed to be training students how to use nothing but their bodies in combat could siphon so much money out of the city's coffers.

With a sigh, he nonchalantly discarded the paper into the bin at the foot of his desk labeled "OUT", before smoothly bringing his hand to the top of the massive stack to his right and looking over a genin mission report from three days ago. Minato understood the need to develop protocol and routine within the young fledgling ninja community, but still – he could go without having to read and sign off on yet _another_ cat retrieval mission.

He scratched his eye with his free hand, pen perched above the signature line in the other. With an exasperated sigh, he willed it to move.

_'M. Namikaze'_

He then dabbed his stamp in the ink pad, pen still in hand, and slammed it down over top. When he released it, the kanji for 'four' was emblazoned over his name in a bold red ink.

Another piece of paper was disposed of via the "OUT" box, and another unfiled mission report found its way onto his desk.

Another signature.

Another stamp.

Another sigh.

It continued like this for three hours, before the sweet embrace of death took Minato away from this world…

…or so he wished.

Nope, the clock didn't lie. He had another four hours to go.

With an audible groan, he slammed his head into his desk in the pinnacle of boredom. ' _Maybe I can modify the Hiraishin to speed up time_ ,' he brainstormed in jest. To prove his point, he rolled his forehead around on the tabletop, mumbling obscenities under his breath and pulling at his hair with his hands.

"…that damn monkey…"

"You know, Minato, I never took you for a drunkard," came a gruff voice from across the room.

The Hokage blinked, stilling the movement of his head.

"Is that who I think it is?" he mumbled from his desk.

"The one and only!" the man proclaimed proudly. "The bold, the daring, the devilishly handsome, the gallant toad sage Jir-"

Minato was suddenly across the room, with his hand over his sensei's mouth and a frown on his face.

"Please, for the love of Kami, not now," he grumbled. "I've had a really, _really_ long day."

"I'll say," chuckled Jiraiya, as he pried the man's hand off of his face. He just smirked, and pointed to Minato's forehead.

Minato raised an eyebrow, then brought his hand up to his face, where he plucked his pen from his tangled hair. He sweatdropped as he tossed it over his shoulder, where it landed with a soft _tap_ in his pen jar on the corner of his desk.

Jiraiya just rolled his eyes at the showmanship. "Nice moves, but I didn't come all the way back to the Leaf village just to watch you do parlor tricks, _Hokage-sama_."

"Augh! Stop calling me that. Or, at least, stop calling me that in that patronizing way…" Minato grumbled, already back at his desk in a flash of yellow and white. He leaned forward onto his desk, before rubbing his eyes again for good measure. "I trust you have news to report, then?"

Jiraiya immediately hardened, before frowning and nodding at Minato. "Yes. We have narrowed down where Orochimaru's currently holed up. It's in an abandoned bunker on the outskirts of town, past the city walls. I recommend sending an ANBU team out to take care of him."

"You're not volunteering to deal with him yourself?" Minato responded, a faint hint of surprise in his eyes. Otherwise, however, his 'Hokage Face' was primed and ready.

"I thought it was implied," Jiraiya said, as he turned and walked over to the window behind Minato's desk. He, too, liked the view – just not the job that came with it. So he settled for the occasional visit every now and then. "I'd be leading the ANBU team, of course."

"No."

Jiraiya started at this, before turning with a raised brow at his pupil, who was still facing forwards at his desk. He hadn't moved at all.

"Might I ask why?"

"As much as you think Orochimaru is your responsibility, I'm not so sure. He may have been the friend and rival that you strove to save from himself in the past, but the fact of the matter is that it's Sarutobi that needs to do this."

Jiraiya's eyebrows threatened to shoot into orbit. "That old geezer? Are you sure?"

"Come now, Jiraiya, be nice," came a soothing voice from the office doorway. "I thought I taught you better than that."

Another eyeroll from the iron-white haired man. "Sensei. Might as well come in."

"Who said that was your say?" Hiruzen smiled, shifting his pipe from side to side in amusement. "Last I checked, this wasn't your office." He turned to Minato. "How's the hat treating you, my friend?"

An exasperated look was his response. Hiruzen chuckled to himself, as he closed the door behind him with a small _click_ and strolled casually to the window that Jiraiya was occupying.

"Beautiful view, don't you think?" he mused out loud. His reply was a nod from his student, and a grunt of affirmation from his successor. They were obviously waiting for him to speak his mind on the matter at hand. The old Hokage was known for deliberating heavily on things before opening his mouth. They didn't call him the Professor purely for his repertoire of ninjutsu alone, after all.

After a few puffs from his pipe, he turned and looked at Minato, who had swiveled in his chair to observe the two older men with a raised eyebrow.

"I accept your proposal. Give me a team of ANBU and his location, and I'll set him straight."

Minato nodded once, turning back to his desk to fumble through his papers. "Alright. I'm granting you full authority on this task. Do whatever it takes to stop Orochimaru." He tugged on a sheet of paper that was about halfway through one of his piles, holding it steady with his free hand until the paper came free. With a cursory glance, he nodded, and handed it over to Hiruzen. He then locked eyes with the man, and folded his arms in his lap professionally. "I mean it. By any means necessary."

Jiraiya tried to hide his discomfort in the statement by turning back to the window with crossed arms, but considering he was among two of the only people on the planet that knew Jiraiya better than he himself did, it was in vain.

"Sensei…" Minato began with a small smile, "I know that you want to do this. Trust me, I understand it. If one of my team mates decided to become a missing-nin on his own accord, I'd do everything in my power to get him back. We all would." (4)

Hiruzen nodded to this, turning to face his student. "Do not worry, Jiraiya. I'll see to it myself that his actions are stopped, one way or another." He folded the paper that Minato gave him and stashed it away within the confines of his rolling robes.

Jiraiya sighed, and closed his eyes, arms still crossed. "Alright. I trust both of you. Just… be careful, alright? I don't want to lose two members of my team at the same time."

The old Hokage just chuckled at this, waving his hand through the air dismissively as he began to take his leave. "Who do you take me for, Jiraiya?" He stopped about halfway to the door, before turning his attention to the blond man sitting at his old desk. "Have a good evening, Minato."

The Fourth smiled warmly and waved a little to the man, as he turned and strolled out the door.

Not long after, the brazen figure of his sensei began to walk towards the door as well.

"I'll see you around, Minato."

"Of course!" Minato smiled slightly. He knew Jiraiya was peeved at him for pulling rank, but it had to be done. Hiruzen had specifically asked for Jiraiya not to be included in the task, and the blond man had almost immediately noted that the Toad Sage would _not_ be happy about it. But the Third had only smiled mischievously, stating that it would be a good opportunity for Minato to stretch his Hokage muscles and put his personal feelings aside for the good of the village.

As much as it pained him to admit it, the old man was right. He was still wet behind the ears when it came to his job, and every piece of (mostly) harmless experience he could get, he should snatch up as quickly as he could.

His smile faltered a little more as the man began to slip through the door.

Then, he jumped, remembering something he was supposed to ask.

"Wait! Sensei?" he called out, just as the man's white hair disappeared from view.

For a moment of tense silence, Minato thought that Jiraiya had simply ignored him out of spite, and he sighed, sinking back into his chair.

But then, the grinning mug of the legendary pervert manifested itself in the doorframe.

"Changed your mind?"

Minato deadpanned, shaking his head. "What? No. I just wanted to ask you something."

The Sannin frowned and grumbled, but made no sign of stopping his blond student from continuing.

Acknowledging Jiraiya's consent to continue, Minato smiled cheekily, and rubbed the back of his neck in embarrassment. "Actually, I'd rather we talk about it over dinner. It involves Kushina as well. Would you be willing to come over at, say, sixish tonight?"

Jiraiya made a show of himself, vivaciously sighing, and slumping back against the door in exasperation. "Aww, do I have to? That seriously cuts into my research time!" he cried, sliding to the floor in a defeated heap.

"You know as well as I do that you'll have more than just the bathhouse women to deal with if you blow Kushina off like I know you're thinking about doing," Minato quipped immediately, a small vengeful smile creeping onto his face.

Jiraiya's expression paled to the point where his forehead and cheeks were completely intangible from the white hair that jetted every which way around his forehead protector. It was quite the sight – seeing the fear in the legendary shinobi's eyes at the mention of Kushina's wrath.

Then, he paled himself when he realized how much trouble _he_ would be in if Jiraiya didn't show up.

So Minato became ghostly white as well.

"I see you've realized that both of us are in a pickle," mumbled a wide-eyed Jiraiya. "I guess I have no choice. Should I bring a bottle of wine or something?"

This snapped the Hokage out of his terror-induced trance, and he simply gave a warm chuckle. "Oh, no, none of that. She's just making some sort of ramen dish. You know her and ramen."

Jiraiya didn't skip a beat, although his pupils did dilate slightly. "Right. So two bottles then?"

Minato sighed and slumped forward a bit. "Yeah, that'd probably be a good idea. You know how she is with ramen."

With an apprehensive gulp, Jiraiya slowly stood up, his legs shaking nearly imperceptibly – not that Minato didn't notice. "…right. I guess I'll see you tonight then," he said with a sheepish grin, and he was simply gone in a flash of leaves and hormones.

"Pervert," mumbled Minato, as he rolled his eyes and began to forage through the mounds of paperwork that manifested themselves across his desk on a nearly minutely basis.

* * *

Another insurmountable period of time passed, before the sun's harsher gaze began to bear down on Minato from behind the paned glass of his sterile red office.

He _really_ needed to do some redecorating. Everything looked to fresh – too _new_ , and too uninviting. The only addition he had made in the last day to his drab workspace was a large round rug that was centered under the small, plain light fixture that fought off the darkness in the corners.

Although this rug was, undoubtedly, special.

He had spent the better part of four hours the previous day with ink-covered hands and arms, frantically scribbling away the formula for his most powerful and long-lasting Hiraishin seal on the bottom of it. If anything were to happen while he was away from the tower – or hell, even the village – he could focus on the seal from a massive distance (much further than with his normal, hastily applied Hiraishin seals) and move to it instantaneously, with little to no difference in chakra draw.

Well, not at _that_ time, at least. He had pumped so much into the seal itself as to offset the costs later that Kushina had found him that morning, in his pajamas, passed out across it in sheer chakra exhaustion. It was… embarrassing, to say the least, but it was certainly worth it. The Hokage Office was now certifiably his main hub – and his most powerful transportation and offensive jutsu had to accommodate for it.

He had thought about placing one in the living room of his home, but for the time being, a ring of four Hiraishin kunai could do the job and then some. Besides, he couldn't simply have four kunai jutting out of the floor of his office, where people would be no doubt flocking for mission assignments, emergency summons, or the like, now could he?

With a sigh and a contented smirk, Minato realized that he was down to the last stack of paperwork on his desk. It was getting easier, that was certain. Now it seemed like he would be going home a mere _three_ hours late, as opposed to the past weeks' six to seven. It was a wonderful change of pace – he'd be able to walk home while the sun was still somewhat up!

That thought alone made Minato's heart soar, and he began to attack the stack of paper with renewed vigor.

That was, of course, until he smelled… something.

Something _familiar._

' _What are Genma and his team doing now?'_ Minato frowned, setting his pen down and looking upward.

Ozone.

The smell that his Hiraishin jutsu left behind when pumped with a rather… significant amount of chakra. He remembered his first few attempts to get the hang of the space-time jutsu, and the smell alone still sent his body into Pavlov-induced nausea tremors.

But he had compensated for that by refining the technique significantly – so much so, in fact, that by the time it was used in the Third Shinobi War, there simply was _no smell whatsoever._

Completely untraceable, and completely undetectable.

He narrowed his eyes slightly at the rug in his office. ' _Is the seal interfering with something that Genma's squad is practicing?'_

He knew that his personal guard was working to refine their own performance of the jutsu, but that it was simply not coming along as well as they would have liked.

But he immediately crossed that theory out when he saw the waves of heat began to permeate off of the ground, above his rug, distorting his view of the back wall and door ever so slightly.

That was not right at _all_.

He had _never_ seen the Hiraishin do anything close to what it was doing now.

Or, rather, what he _thought_ it was doing. ' _It could be something completely different'_ , he suddenly thought. His eyes widened in fear momentarily, before he steeled himself once again.

' _Did the Stone figure it out? Did they find a weakness, a way to use the Hiraishin against me?'_

Another blast of ozone stench attacked his nostrils, and he grimaced. The density in the office was becoming tangible – and the papers on his desk were starting to stir a little on their own accord. He could _feel_ the waves of gravity hit his body, increasing ever so slightly as time went on.

Minato grimaced, and reached for his kunai pouch, preparing for the worst. Whatever it was that was happening, it was simply not natural, and most certainly _not good_.

There was a blinding flash of light, and a brilliant burst of pure energy that blitzed away from the rug. An earsplitting crack echoed through the room, deafening Minato significantly, and he flew backwards out of his chair and on to the ground in a confused stupor.

He shook his head and tried to regain his senses as quickly as he could.

' _Did a bolt of lightning just hit my office?'_

The ring of tinnitus in his ears began to slow slightly, granting him more and more of his hearing each passing second.

"…ou doing?! You could have gotten yourself killed! I can't believe you! This is... this is unbelievable! You're lucky we left when we did, because your mother is going to tear you a new one when she gets home!"

"But I didn't do anything wrong!"

"Like hell you didn't! That technique… it's not simply for show, y'know! There's a whole process behind it! Trying to use it incomplete like that is, no joke, and I'm totally serious when I say this, deadly! You know how long it took me to get right? A solid month! Hell, it took upwards of three years for the damn thing to be developed in the first place! You can't, and I mean _can't_ , pull it off in just one week!"

"Come on, dad! You're being an asshole!"

Minato blinked. ' _What the hell is going on…?'_

He groaned, and slowly regained his footing, using his desk as support as he did so. His mind subconsciously prompted him to summon his ANBU guard, but he stopped himself before flaring his chakra. He was the only one here, and it didn't make sense to put anyone else in harm's way if he could help it.

He wasn't called the Yellow Flash simply for show.

After another moment of head shaking, he blinked his eyes a few times in order to fight away the fuzzy aftereffects of the strange explosion that had happened not moments earlier.

But his eyes shot open the instant he took an apprehensive look at the scene before him.

Minato honestly had expected to see a massive hole in his office, leading down to the ground floor, and a massive fire beginning to flare up and around the place where his rug used to be.

Instead, there were two blond men standing atop its completely normal spot in his office.

Well, one was a man, at least.

The other was a boy – a genin, by the looks of it.

And the man was righteously _pissed_.

"ASSHOLE?!" he bellowed, gripping the hand of the boy just a little tighter, causing the kid to grimace slightly under the pressure. "I'm not the asshole here, Boruto!"

"What?!" the boy crowed, fighting out of the man's grasp. "How can I be the asshole?! You're the one that stopped my match prematurely like that! Now I have no chance-"

Minato raised a dumbfounded eyebrow at just what he was looking at, tuning out whatever it was that the boy was going on about at the time. It took him a moment to realize that he was, in fact, _not_ hallucinating, and once he had solidified that… crucial fact, he finally took the time to observe the situation properly.

To the right of his desk, towards the middle of the room, was a boy. He wore a black, high-collared shirt, accented by a vibrant red lining that highlighted his white v-neck shirt and incredibly… _familiar_ blond hair – which was shaped surprisingly like a large yellow leaf that had landed on his head. A black shinobi headband christened his forehead - although Minato couldn't tell what the insignia said. He assumed that it was one of the Leaf's, because his secretary wouldn't have allowed them up to his office if that weren't the case…

Minato blinked again and rubbed his head with his hands. The theory that he had misjudged the chakra calculations for his seal and it had simply knocked him out while he was working was growing stronger in his mind all the while. That would mean that these two bickering shinobi were sent here to speak with him… and they had yet to notice that he was practically unconscious on the floor.

_'Just how long had I been out?'_

"You listen here, young man! I have the power to take that headband away from you for this! I'd watch your mouth if I were you, y'know!"

Minato's eyes shifted to the left, which made him audibly gasp.

It was like looking in the mirror.

A tall, lean-yet-fit man stood with his arms crossed next to the boy, shooting him a glare that would surely be deadly if looks could kill. His frame was wrapped by an orange-black longsleeved shirt that led down to a pair of basic black pants and high-brimmed sandals that went up to his calves. His blond hair was cut somewhat short, but still leaving enough to show just how unruly it was, as it shot every which way haphazardly.

But what surprised Minato the most about this mysterious newcomer was the fact that he, too, wore a short, yet impressive, white cloak. From the angle that Minato had on the man, he could see that it was also accented with flames along the bottom, and there was… _writing?_ down the back, just like his.

Minato stood there, flabbergasted, as the two shinobi (he assumed the one on the left was also a shinobi, just by the way he presented himself) bickered with one another unendingly.

"Uh…" he said unconsciously, as his mouth opened and closed rapidly, trying to come to terms with what he was seeing.

The boy suddenly twitched slightly, and turned to look him right in the eye, where he frowned confusingly.

Minato jumped.

The boy had startlingly beautiful, electric blue eyes – as well as…

…a set of _whiskers?_

No, they were just birthmarks, it seemed. But nonetheless, it was certainly an interesting physical characteristic.

The man payed no attention to the boy's shifted gaze – instead, it made him angrier.

"Boruto! Hey, Boruto?! Are you paying attention, damn it? Just what-"

Minato watched in a form of mild apprehension as the man's eyes traced the newly-identified Boruto's line of sight to himself.

A pair of calculating, rage-filled, loving eyes locked onto his own, and immediately shot open.

As did Minato's.

They were _exactly_ like his. The color, the size of the pupil, the way they sat on his face.

Although, he had to say that the shape was different. Yet, still, it was oddly familiar…

Minato's eyes shifted to the man's cheeks, where a similar set of whiskers sat upon his face.

' _Father and son,'_ he subconsciously concluded, not that the rest of his mind took heed.

He watched in mild fascination as the man's face contorted into fear, worry, uneasiness, happiness, then anger.

Then, he turned white as a ghost.

Minato blinked, finally somewhat out of his trance.

"Uhh," he repeated, clearing his throat, and sitting back down in his seat. "Can I help you gentlemen?"

Now it was the other man's turn to gape like a fish out of water. He took a step forward, stopped, then turned to look at the office he was standing in.

Boruto, now slightly nervous at the man's antics, took a step back and watched him as he silently observed his surroundings.

"…Dad?" he said trepidatiously, eyes shifting from blond man to blond man.

The part of Minato's brain that was responsible for deductive reasoning silently cheered in the recesses of his mind.

The boy's father stopped immediately, before he turned to look at Minato again.

His eyes glazed over slightly in confusion, then realization – or, at least, what Minato assumed was realization.

He took a few protective steps towards his son, grappling Boruto's shoulder harshly, as he continued to look at Minato with fearful anger.

"Shit!" he simply stated, before the pair disappeared in a swirl of leaves.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto, so please don't sue me.
> 
> Hi there! This is my first attempt at writing anything on/using AO3, so be nice if there are any strange formatting problems - I'm a filthy FFN transplant.
> 
> Speaking of FFN, you can find me over there under the same name! Check out my profile page for a link.
> 
> Thanks for reading! I appreciate it. See you in a week for Chapter 2!  
> -Endo
> 
> \--
> 
> Original upload date: 27 June 2016  
> Official beta for this chapter: N/A


	2. Chapter 2

**Blonding - A Time Travel Fic**

**Chapter 2**

* * *

If there was a competition for the world's crappiest father, Boruto Uzumaki was content with the fact that he knew – just _knew_ – that his was at the top of the leaderboard.

Hell, if he saw the Seventh Hokage – the _real_ Seventh Hokage – for more than twenty minutes on any given day, it was a victory in his books. Why the hell was it so damn hard for his dad to make time for his own family?

Granted, Boruto knew that he was the only one among his family that seemed to really care. His mother appeared to tolerate his perpetual absence, his sister pretty much did whatever their mother did, and Dad himself; well, he was a self-centered ass. Of _course_ he'd side with himself.

He was fighting an uphill battle. Why couldn't anyone see that the Hokage cared more about the damned village than his own flesh and blood? His own _clan?_

Boruto grimaced at that word. He _hated_ the concept of clan superiority. His best friend, Shikadai, tended to try and pull that card all the time to get out of doing things he was supposed to be doing. To the blond-haired Uzumaki heir, he'd rather saw off his own right arm than take the mantle of his father once he finally kicked the bucket.

His heart stopped for a second, as he stood in front of his bathroom mirror, toothbrush hanging lackadaisically out of his mouth, shirt somewhere under a pile of other miscellany behind him in his room.

' _Did I really just wish my father was dead?'_

He blinked once, then twice, then scowled at his reflection.

That was cowardly. The man may have been… _tiresome_ , to borrow a phrase, but that was no reason to think something like that.

He still loved his father, after all.

Boruto's expression softened a little, as leaned forward a bit over his sink and spit the contents of his mouth into the now-running water. After wiping his face with a towel, then rinsing and setting his toothbrush back in its rightful home, he made to leave his bathroom to start his day properly, when his golden reflection in the mirror drew his attention once again.

He froze in his place, strangely transfixed at the boy that looked back at him. He never really cared too much one way or another how he looked; girls weren't exactly anything to be scoffed at, and most tended to be more obsessed with him and clingy than he would like, so he basically just did the bare minimum and left it at that. Regardless, he raised a thin eyebrow at what he saw in front of him.

His blond mop of hair was still slightly damp from his morning shower, and a few drops of perspiration due to the humid air within the bathroom began to drip down his forehead, down his face. His eyes moved to the rest of his body, and he flexed a little bit in smug admiration – being an actual genin apparently _did_ have its perks after all. All that training hadn't been for nothing, it would seem.

His eyes shifted from his arms to the small metal rod attached to a string around his neck. He softened considerably at that, remembering its history. He was wrong when he said that girls were annoying – well, not all girls at least. There was one girl in his life that meant more to him than he'd ever care to admit, least of all to his parents. They'd just get all sappy and embarrassing – that was, of course, if his father was even around. Who knows, maybe he'd send a shadow clone to mock him.

Regardless, his sister's craftsmanship, as crude as it may have been when she made the necklace, still warmed the cockles of his heart. She had only been four at the time, and he himself had been barely older, but Boruto had kept it ever since. He'd occasionally have to replace the string that tied the simple screw to his neck if he trained too hard or just wore it too much, and it poked him sometimes while he slept, but he didn't mind. It was a keepsake – a memento of a simpler time.

A time when his father was still very much a part of their family.

And once again, like always, his thoughts gravitated towards his dad.

Why did that always happen?!

He slammed an angry fist down weakly onto his countertop, blue eyes darting up to their reflective copies before him.

Very, _very_ blue eyes. Granted, they were more electric blue than anything, thanks to the effects of his mother's white eyes mingled with his dad's cerulean, but they still did nothing but scream "Naruto Uzumaki". The hair certainly didn't help.

And neither did the set of four whisker marks that were etched across his cheeks indelibly. Absentmindedly, he ran a small, blistered hand – he'd yet to develop callouses, considering he'd been a genin for six months – over his birthmarks absentmindedly, tracing their outline faintly as they traveled across his face.

He had been so mad, so _angry_ not even ten seconds ago, and yet now –

Now, he was calm. Very calm, in fact. It was a strange effect, one he didn't really understand. Maybe it was just because he was starting to sweat out his feelings, from being in the muggy bathroom for longer than he intended to. As if to confirm his hypothesis, he started to see the mirror in front of him fog over, a cue for him to get out and start his day.

With a sigh, he barred his teeth at his rapidly blurring two-dimensional counterpart, exposing a pair of surprisingly sharp canines that came down over the rest of his teeth ever so slightly, in an almost animalistic way. They were nowhere near as vulpine as his father's, but that didn't make him look slightly feral every time he got angry early in the morning, as one tended to do. He didn't really understand why he looked the way he did; or rather, why his father looked the way he did. After all, they weren't Inuzukas… were they?

Regardless, Boruto smirked in the mirror, before inhaling sharply.

"Let's do this!" he called out to his reflection, the two Borutos pumping their fists in the air triumphantly. It looked ridiculous, considering he was still standing practically naked, in his shinobi pants, shirtless, shouting in his own house.

He shrugged nonchalantly, and slammed the bathroom door open, a cloud of steam oozing out into the hallway in a very dramatic and theatrical way. Naturally, he struck a pose as he strolled out into his house, puffing out his chest and grinning impishly.

"What're you doing, big brother?" came a small, confused voice to his left, causing him to jump and flinch unconsciously away from the previously-unseen presence.

"Nyaah! Himawari, where the heck did you come from?!" he screeched, cheeks reddening in embarrassment.

"I was waiting to use the restroom," she replied blithely, smiling as she did so. Apparently the awkwardness of the situation was lost to her, much to Boruto's eternal gratitude.

Instead, she just pattered past him with a skip in her step, humming a small tune, her happy smile still on her face.

Then, the door to the bathroom clicked shut behind him.

Boruto blinked at what just happened, before the voice of his mother called his name from downstairs, unmistakably from the kitchen.

"Boruto!" she sang, "You had better hurry up! Today's a big day!"

"I know, y'know!" he shouted back in irritation. Why did everyone feel the need to remind him of the obvious?

He stomped down the wood-lined hallway, running a hand absentmindedly along the beige-painted walls as he went. Their house was certainly nothing to be scoffed at – they lived in the same place as the Hokage, after all.

Still, it was a relatively simply home, with a basic upstairs landing, met in the middle by the bathroom that he and his sister shared. Once you reached the top of the stairs, you had the choice of left or right – left sent you down a smaller hallway to his parents' bedroom, right sent you first to Himawari's room, then to his own.

He yawned nonchalantly as he twisted the doorknob to his sanctuary, then grimacing as the smell hit his nose.

Week-old instant ramen bowls were littered on and around his desk, adorned magnificently by various quantities of garbage and dirty clothing, spread across the floor of his room like massive anthills. He expertly maneuvered around the piles with a bored expression, as if he was used to doing this kind of thing on a daily basis.

Boruto's room was nothing more than that, really – just a simple room with a bunch of posters clinging to the plain, beige-painted walls, a few small shelves holding various trinkets of his, a bookshelf next to his desk, a chair covered in some more sets of his clothes (where the hell were all these shirts coming from, anyways?) towards his door, a few more shelves crammed in the small space between where his desk and bed sat.

His bed was completely disheveled; sheets were balled up and spread out like they had been stuck under an industrial-strength blender. Hanging off of his headboard, partially concealing the Uzumaki family crest that was etched into it, was his trademark black-and-red jacket, which he grabbed in one sweeping motion on his way to his desk.

Pausing for a moment, Boruto frowned and turned around to look at the mess around him. Then he shrugged nonchalantly, bent over a bit, and began to rummage through the clothes pile closest to him. He brought a seemingly harmless white shirt up to his nose, before blanching and tossing it across the room.

"Yeah… not that one."

Two more shirts were hurled across the room, before a garment finally passed his _excruciatingly high-brow_ quality smell test. It was thrown over his light frame without a second thought, followed closely by the black jacket.

Finally feeling dressed enough to go out and conquer the world, Boruto shifted a few things around on his desk, revealing a small mouse and keyboard. With the repeated mashing of buttons and a few loud bashings on the tower of his computer, as well as a few expletives sprinkled in, it roared to life in a fervor of electrical clicks and whirs, blasting Boruto's face with a bright white synthetic light.

He went through his daily digital routine, poking about his calendar to make sure nothing too serious snuck up on him, then moving on to his shinobi-assigned email account to see if any news or announcements had been made available overnight.

He actually grew excited when he saw his father's work address positioned next to a new message, brightly blinking at the top of his screen, urging to be opened. So, he humored it.

His hopeful smile turned to a scowl almost instantaneously. It was just a reminder of the schedule for the day's events, contingency plans in case something went wrong (his father had always been strangely paranoid around Chuunin Exam time), as well as a few smaller snippets of news attached to the end by the Hokage's secretary and assistants.

It was your typical daily report; one that he, as well as every other active shinobi in the Leaf, got at the beginning of every day, without fail. It was to be expected.

But still, he couldn't help but feel betrayed – betrayed that he hadn't seen, nor talked to his father since Konohamaru-sensei had handed them the Chuunin exam applications six days ago. He was happy, excited, hopeful –

Hopeful that his dad would come home and take him out to dinner. Or maybe, just _maybe_ , pat him on the back and tell him congratulations for being a member of the first rookie team in a few years to try for the illustrious rank of Chuunin right out of the Academy.

A part of him had hoped that his father had done the absolute _easiest_ thing he could have done in order to show some sort of sign he noticed, or cared. He had honestly hoped that the email was for him, and only for him – some sort of praise or congratulations. Just something - _anything._

He roared to himself with fury, grabbing his keyboard and tossing it at the wall. It soared across his desk for a moment, before the cord caught and it clattered to his desktop with a massive crash. He was out the door before it even made contact.

Had he stuck around for just five more minutes, Boruto would have gotten that email.

* * *

The Honorable Seventh Hokage yawned, stretching his fingers behind his neck as he leaned back in his desk chair, checking the clock as he did so. With a few tired smacks of his lips, he leaned back up again and over his desk, the bags under his eyes seeming to grow with each passing moment.

All this paperwork. All the time.

It had only gotten worse after the economic and technological boom that happened shortly following the Fourth Shinobi War. He had – for a brief period of time, at least – thought that the advent of the computer would alleviate most, if not all of his papery woes.

Nope.

Naruto Uzumaki ran a tired, bandaged hand through his short, yet spiky blond hair. He still missed his forehead protector, even though he now wore something much more precious and symbolic. He shot a tired, yet admiring, glance at the white cloak that flowed from his shoulders, bunching up down his back as it was pinned to the chair by his exhausted frame.

It was important to note, however, that Naruto Uzumaki _never_ got tired – well, not physically, at least. It seemed that whatever unseen deity that had granted him with the strength to fight for days… literally _days_ … took his mental stamina as payment.

Naruto rolled his eyes as he felt the strange, disconnected feeling of someone smirking from within his stomach.

"Yeah, yeah, I know what I said," he grumbled to his empty office, sliding open a drawer and pulling out a pen and a stamp. "Don't be a smartass."

With a very unmajestic yawn, he began to scribble away at a budget analysis that had wormed its way onto his desk. He drew swirls and doodles along the margins as he read, slowly drawing his quickly dwindling attention. Finally, after less than thirty seconds, he just muttered something incoherent – but most likely very explicit – flipped the page to the back, and slammed his signature onto the blank at the back. Whatever. He'd just read it more closely later… right?

His eyes shot open, as they darted to the watch on his hand.

"Shit!" he said with a grimace, slapping himself in the face. His hand lingered for a moment, before it slowly slid down his nose and mouth, dragging skin along as it went.

With a groan, he began to forage around in one of the _mountains_ of paper that covered his desk, the chairs in front of it, the surrounding floor – hell, one even went all the way to the ceiling. Or so he thought, at least. It certainly felt like it did.

Finally, he found what he was looking for – his laptop. It wasn't anything special – just enough for him to compile important notes and documents for the daily announcements memo he sent out at _precisely_ six in the morning, every morning.

It was currently 6:18.

He looked through the short list of things he had noted the night before – or, rather, earlier this morning. He really didn't sleep much anymore. Naruto just shrugged his shoulders, and reached around another pile of paperwork to the phone that was planted firmly in the far right corner of his desk. With the click of a button, the hollow sound of a woman screeched out of the speaker.

"Good Morning, Lord Seventh. What do you need?"

"Hello, Tasukete. Umm…" he grinned embarrassingly, rubbing the back of his neck, even though no one was there to see it. "Hehe, yeah… I _may_ have forgotten to send the daily email out earlier today – can you please put one together for me and get it out by seven? Today is a really important day, so I don't have much time to do it myself, unfortunately."

There was a brief pause between when Naruto stopped speaking and Tasukete began again – the Hokage just sweatdropped as he could damn near _feel_ the woman laughing on his behalf from downstairs. Then, after another few moments, the phone flickered again. "No need to worry, Lord Seventh, I already took care of it."

This surprised him. "What, really? But I had a list of things that I wanted to–"

"Already added," she said, beating him to it. "I pulled it up before you got here. All your work files are on the network drive here for the tower, remember?"

The last part sounded rather exasperated, as if she had to _constantly_ remind him of the fact.

It seemed that it still didn't quite catch, as Naruto just raised an eyebrow and frowned. "Yeah, that's what you said last time. Still doesn't mean I know what you're talking about."

Silence.

This made Naruto a little peeved. "Hey, look – I may not know all the ins and outs of all this damn technology, but I can sure as hell kick some bad guy ass if I need to! That's all that matters in the end, y'know?! That's why I'm here!" He paused, waiting a moment to cool himself down before he got _too_ angry for something that wasn't really that important. "Damn paperwork though; I have hardly any time to train nowadays," he mumbled to himself, hoping that the woman on the line hadn't heard her.

More silence.

"Will that be all, Lord Seventh?" Tasukete finally said, voice positively _dripping_ with boredom.

It took everything Naruto had to not go off on the girl. And apparently, she knew it, because she loved to push his buttons like this every time he went off on some sort of "old man" speech involving technology and ass-kicking. It was part of their routine, it felt like.

Not that Naruto enjoyed it.

He grumbled to himself, before flipping the phone off without responding. Then, he leaned back in his chair, looking up at the ceiling of his office in exasperation.

Today was going to be a _long_ day.

It was the beginning of the Chuunin Exams.

He had done them before – five times, to be exact. Each time, they went off without a hitch; however, it was always the one time that he wouldn't be prepared that something bad would happen.

It was like some sort of universal law.

Regardless, there was much to be done. The chuunin applications had to be filed and organized, all the team rosters had to be handed in before the first test began that afternoon, and there was the perpetual tenseness that came only when dozens of foreign shinobi waltzed through the gates in order to try their hand at a flak jacket.

Although, Naruto knew that these Chuunin Exams would be different – much different. For one, the inclusion of an only-recently-discovered Hidden Village, the Village Hidden by the Sea, meant that they typically cheerful balance between the Five Great Elemental Nations and their smaller allies was somewhat disrupted by apprehension and worry.

They had been found almost accidentally by an oceanography boat, on its way to study a very rare, very interesting chakra-emitting fish that migrated to the north, near the coast of the Land of Lightning every summer. After following the fish out, the research party had been astounded to find a league of shinobi, all separated from the rest of the world for generations, living self-sufficiently in a bubble of time forgotten.

That may have been all well and good, but Naruto was nervous about the Exams for one specific reason in particular:

His thirteen year old son would be competing.

Naruto's blood ran cold just thinking about it.

It wasn't that he didn't have confidence in Boruto's strength – the opposite was true. Naruto had not been able to be the _greatest_ father figure in the world for his son, but he at the very least took every measure possible to look out for him. That included looking over his files, and having lengthy conversations with his jounin-sensei, Konohamaru Sarutobi.

Not to mention that he would occasionally send a shadow clone to their training sessions just to see how he was doing.

Naruto managed to smile at that. From what he was able to tell, Boruto was an incredibly gifted shinobi – he seemed to have inherited the better parts of each of his parents' respective fighting and learning styles. For one, he was able to quickly and effortlessly combine Hinata's Gentle Fist style with his own haphazard, Shadow Clone-based style.

Naruto smile pained slightly, remembering the day he taught his son the Shadow Clone technique. Granted, he couldn't use the clones anywhere near as effectively as he himself could – but then again, nobody else could either. Nonetheless, Naruto was incredibly impressed by the fact that his son could pull off two perfect Shadow Clones at the age of nine, without any chakra control training or other developed skill.

That day had been one of Naruto's favorites in recent years – along with several other wonderful moments.

The day he got married.

The day Boruto was born.

The day Himawari was born.

The day he took the hat from his sensei and became the Seventh.

They had gone out in the backyard during one of Naruto's rare week-long breaks from running diplomatic missions all across the Five Great Elemental Nations. That was back when Naruto was actually able to have meaningful conversation with his son, as well as just spend time with him in general. They were growing to be great friends, just him and Boruto.

_"Dad! Hey, dad! Teach me something cool!"_

_Naruto raised an eyebrow from his desk, setting down the huge scroll he had been perusing over for the past few hours. "Yeah? Like what?"_

_Boruto stopped moving, and began to think long and hard from the doorway to his father's bedroom. It was kind of cute, Naruto had to admit, but it was also a bit unnerving. It was like looking at a mirror sometimes._

_Then, his face lit up like the sunset, and he gave a nice big smile. "Oh! Oh! I know! How about Shadow Clones! Y'know, the ones that let you be in millions of places at once!"_

_Naruto let out a snicker at that. "I can't be in_ millions _of places at once. That's impossible, y'know."_

_Boruto just gave him an exasperated sigh. "You know what I mean! Now come on! Are you gonna teach me or not?!"_

_Naruto frowned a bit to himself, looking down at the scrolls that he had lying all over his room, over his bed, on his dresser, on the floor, stapled to the walls._

_Well, he wasn't getting anywhere with this today anyway._

_He turned and stood up suddenly, giving his son a foxy grin. "Alright, fine. Meet me outside in the backyard in five minutes." And then, he poofed out of existence._

_Boruto's eyes widened considerably. "Whoa! Wait a minute, was that a Shadow Clone that entire time?!" His look of surprise turned into excitement instantaneously. "That was awesome! This is gonna be sweet!"_

**_-oo00oo-_ **

_Far away, within the confines of a rather innocuous little ramen stand, the original Naruto jumped out of his seat as he recalled the memories of his clone that had just dispelled._

_"Damn clones, signing me up for crap I didn't wanna sign up for," he grumbled, as he slapped some change down on the counter and walked out from underneath the stand._

_Still, he had a small grin on his face as he began to sprint back to his house. His training and relaxation could wait, just this once._

**_-oo00oo-_ **

_Boruto could barely contain his excitement, as he bounded back and forth from foot to foot._

_A_ real _jutsu. Not just some dumb leaf-holding exercise._

_But more than that, he was gonna get to hang out with his dad! The coolest guy in all of the Leaf! Everyone thought so._

_Every time Boruto heard the people of the village sing his praises, he would beam with pride. 'Yep, that's MY dad!' he would loudly proclaim._

_His father was a massive enigma – whenever he'd ask people why they loved him so much, most would just sigh contentedly and tell him to ask his father himself if he wanted to know. Even his own mother, when prodded, said to wait until he was older to ask his father._

_His dad could be doing anything else, but instead he would be teaching him something new. And totally cool! Maybe now he could find out why his dad was such a badass – or, at least, why everyone thought he was._

_His jumpiness nearly doubled, as he began to vibrate in anticipation._

_"Are you trying to tire yourself out before we even start?" came a humored voice from behind him._

_"Whoa! How'd you get there so fast!"_

_"Ancient ninja secret," Naruto shrugged, smiling amusedly down at his son. "Sooooo…" his grin turned mischievous. "…what was it I came down here for again? I don't really remember."_

_Boruto's eyes just widened, then he glared up at his father angrily. "You mean you already forgot?!" he complained exasperatedly, already fearing the worst. "You said you were gonna teach me the Shadow Clone jutsu!"_

_Naruto kept up his act. "I said I was gonna watch you pull weeds? That doesn't sound very nice of me." He turned on his feet a little, his bandaged arm on his side, the other scratching his head exaggeratedly, as if lost in thought. "No, I don't think that was it…"_

_Boruto jumped back in front of his father angrily, fists clenched at his sides. "Shadow Clones! You were gonna teach me Shadow Clones!"_

_"Play with toads?" Naruto said with a raised eyebrow, mouth still betraying his act. "Well, I mean, that's a bit weird, but it's definitely something I can arrange."_

_"SHADOW CLONES! SHADOW CLONES!"_

_"Shadow Clones?" Naruto said incredulously. "Why didn't you just say so?!"_

_Naruto could almost_ see _the red-hot steam coming out of his son's ears. He really was a hothead, just like his dad. It was strangely endearing to torture his son like that._

_At the ridiculousness of it all, Naruto burst out laughing, having to hold his sides to keep from doubling over. "Haha! You totally bought it! That was great!"_

_Boruto yelled in frustration, and began to pound Naruto's chest repeatedly with his fists. This, at least, seemed to pull Naruto out of his humor-induced trance, and he simply wiped a tear from his eye as he ruffled his son's hair._

_Sensing another outburst, Naruto decided to change the subject. "Alright then, so let's learn the Shadow Clone Jutsu, yeah?"_

_It was like someone flipped a switch in Boruto's mind. His eyes lit up like lightbulbs, and he began to jump around again. "Yeah!"_

_"Alright then! First thing's first. I need to see how much chakra you have right now. Have you figured out how to use it yet?"_

_Boruto scoffed. "Uh,_ duh, _we learned that_ last _year." He crossed his arms in front of his chest and rolled his eyes exaggeratedly, as if offended by the whole thing._

_Naruto rolled his eyes too. "Well fine, Mister I-know-everything-about-everything. Flare it up for me for a sec so I can check something."_

_At this, Boruto's eyebrows furrowed in confusion. "Huh? What does this have to do with the Shadow Clone Jutsu?"_

_His father's gaze became a little more serious, which he immediately noted, and began to listen intently._

_"I need to make sure you won't die using it."_

_At this, Boruto froze. "Wh..what? Die?" He glared at his father in irritation. "You never said anything about that!"_

_"You never asked," Naruto deadpanned with another shrug._

_Boruto's eyes widened, and his gaze fogged over considerably, as though he was lost in thought. Then, he locked eyes with his father, a look of fear residing within their blue confines. "You… you wouldn't let that happen, would you, Dad?"_

_"Uhhh," Naruto rapped him on the head a few times lightly with his fist. "Duh! Why do you think I'm asking you to do this, y'know?"_

_That helped ease the tension in the air a little bit, but Naruto could still tell that his son was pretty nervous now._

_Still, Boruto moved an inexperienced hand up to his chest in a half ram seal, and began to focus, his eyes squinted shut adorably in concentration._

_After a moment, a bright blue glow began to flow off of his skin like he was a brilliant cerulean star in the sky, and Naruto scrutinized the aura for a moment before he placed a hand on Boruto's shoulder, breaking him out of his focus._

_"All right! Looks like you'll be able to use it after all."_

_Boruto's eyes lit up at that. "Do you mean it? I can be in tons of places at once like you?!"_

_Naruto cringed a little. "Err, not exactly. I… happen to have more chakra than you do. A lot more. You have more than usual, which is probably because you're my son, but you probably won't be able to make any more than one right now. Maybe two or three after some more training and time, but I dunno." He shrugged nonchalantly. "Hey, most jounin can't make more than two or three anyways. The fact that you can make one at nine is seriously awesome!" Naruto gave him a thumbs-up._

_That seemed to make Boruto feel better, but only slightly. Then, he blinked when he realized what his father had said. "Wait, why do you have so much chakra? If you're such a super cool ninja, how can you make so many shadow clones?"_

_Naruto sweatdropped. 'You definitely get your brains from your mother,' he thought to himself. Then, he remembered that he was_ asked a question; _a situation that typically warranted a reply._

_"Uhh…" Naruto said, obviously grasping for straws. "I… uhh…"_

_"Your father is very special," came a soft voice from behind the two blondies. They both jumped a bit, startled by the intrusion, but recovered immediately when they realized it was simply Hinata._

_And when they realized she was carrying a tray with two tall glasses of lemonade, she was heartily accepted into the conversation._

_"Special? What does that mean?" Boruto pressed, now looking at his mother intently._

_"Well…"_

_Now_ she _seemed to be at a loss for words._

_She sighed with a small smile, and handed each Uzumaki a glass of lemonade, slinging the now empty tray under her arm. Then, she turned to look at her husband, who was now holding his glass anxiously, seemingly_ very _nervous as to what she was about to say._

_"Your father…" she began again, "is very special. As for why, that is something that we want to wait until you are older to discuss. It's…" she trailed off again, before looking into the deep blue eyes of her best friend. "It's something that your father wants to wait a while on. It's no big deal, we just want you to be responsible with the information."_

_The eyes seemed to speak back to her, as if to say, 'Thank you.'_

_"Why are you talking about dad like he isn't here?!" Boruto suddenly said, looking from parent to parent. "Why can't he explain this himself?"_

_"I just want to make sure I don't accidentally say anything I'll regret later," his father said dumbly, scratching the back of his neck with a nervous smile. Then, he bent over and put a hand on his son's shoulder. "Don't worry. I promise I'll tell you everything. Just not right now, okay?"_

_Boruto didn't seem all that happy about the situation, but he didn't question it any further. After all, he was going to get the information someday anyways. He could wait… right?_

_"Alright!" Naruto suddenly shot up to his feet, pumping a bandaged hand into the air in celebration. "Let's learn the Shadow Clone Jutsu!"_

_"Oh! Is that what you two are doing out here?" Hinata said suddenly, a bit of worry in her voice. "Uhh… Naruto…"_

_He sent her a look that said, 'Don't worry, I've got this under control.'_

_"Don't worry mom!" Boruto chirped, giving her a big hug. "Dad already checked my chakra and he said I can make one clone!" His excitement quickly faded as he began to truly parse that information._

_His growing pout was quickly extinguished by a quick peck on his cheek from his mother, and he grinned cheekily in response. "Cut it out, mom!" he said in embarrassment, before prying away from her and standing indignantly between his two parents._

_"Alright then, I trust your father," she said with a small smile, before sitting up and planting a kiss on her husband's cheek too._

_This earned her a blush, which she subconsciously returned._

Naruto blinked.

One of his sentry clones, the ones he had hidden by the front gates at all times, had just dispelled.

The Hidden Sea ninja were here.

He rubbed his eyes with a loud, drawn out yawn. With another tired glance at the room filled with paperwork, he sighed and moved his left hand into a one-handed seal.

"Shadow Clone Jutsu."

The room was enveloped in a layer of smoke and steam, as two dozen chakra constructs materialized inside his cramped office. It took a few moments for the air conditioning system to work its magic, before twenty grouchy Hokages scowled at their creator.

The original Naruto just shrugged dumbly. "What? I have a big day. Shikamaru can eat my foot if he thinks I'm gonna sit and do all this paperwork on my own." He scowled at that. Why the hell was his senior advisor such a stickler when it came to paperwork?

He vaguely recalled a conversation where the not-quite-as-lazy-as-he-used-to-be Nara had made some sort of argument for the fact that the people issuing the paperwork wouldn't want anyone other than the Hokage's eyes looking over their precious little office viruses.

That just didn't make sense to him, but he couldn't respond in kind at the time.

He scowled. "Damn smartass Naras," he grumbled, and the twenty clones all nodded and murmured in agreement.

Then, he looked back at the clock. "Shit! Okay, umm, fine. So, here's the plan." He gave a cheeky grin to his clones, who all raised a collective eyebrow, arms crossed indignantly.

Naruto pointed at the mounds of paperwork that surrounded his desk like some sort of sacrificial offering, and gave a _really_ big grin. "So, I'm gonna go get the guests situated, while _you_ ," he made a pointed glance at the clone army, "get this office cleaned up. And don't just cram it all under the rug like last time!" he added at the end with a glare. Two or three clones pouted at that.

"Look, you're all me, so I know how little you want to do this. But it's gotta be done! We worked super hard for this job! This is just part of it, y'know?" He gave a thumbs up at his assembly of indentured servants.

This seemed to take them by storm, and they all lit up like bolts of lightning. "Alright! Let's file the crap out of this paperwork!" one of the clones cheered, and the others joined in.

The original was out the door before the clones could realize just _what_ they had gotten themselves into.

* * *

"Would you cut it out!" Sarada complained, watching as her teammate went through his kunai pouch for the seemingly hundredth time that afternoon.

"What?! I have to be prepared, y'know! Who the hell knows what we're gonna have to do when we walk in there!" Boruto shot back.

Sarada just rolled her eyes. "You're an idiot sometimes, you know? You probably would have only needed to check your stuff, oh, I don't know, _twice_ , not every twenty seconds for the last two hours!"

"Well it's not my fault that Konohamaru-sensei is late!" the blondie whined, pouting while he crammed his kunai and various other accoutrements back into their respective places on his person. "Why the hell are you so cranky anyways? I was barely making any noise."

"Maybe not," the Uchiha admitted with a frown. "But after _two hours,_ " she hissed that last part in emphasis, "it was starting to whittle away at my sanity! Do you have-"

"Please stop bickering," came the exasperated groan of their third teammate from underneath a nearby tree.

The three of them were standing around the infamous Training Ground 3. Three stumps stood closest to the large expanse of river that split the grounds into two sizeable portions, girdled on all sides by massive walls of foliage. Underneath one of these trees sat Mitsuki - the strange, pale-faced, heritage-less ninja that had weaseled his way onto Boruto and Sarada's team.

He may have been a strange individual on a personal level, but even Boruto had to admit that he was an exceptional ninja.

Underneath a similar tree, not too far away, sat the two genin lauded for being the most brilliant minds of their generation.

Sarada Uchiha was leaning against the trunk of the tree with her sleeved arms crossed in disgruntlement, bright red sleeveless blouse bunching up underneath her hands as she did so.

She was about to launch another verbal attack on her moderately flustered teammate when the sound of shinobi sandals running into the clearing caused them to jump up in anticipation.

The flustered, heavily panting figure of their sensei bolted into view, and they all turned and growled at him.

Well, Boruto and Sarada did, at least.

Mitsuki just kind of sat there nonchalantly.

"You're late!" Boruto shouted, pointing an angry finger at Konohamaru.

The Sarutobi jounin just gave an uneasy chuckle and shrugged, as he caught his breath, arms on his knees as he keeled over a bit.

"Ugh… uh… yeah… sorry… 'bout that…"

"Come on! We're not gonna be let into the first exam if you keep delaying us like this!" Boruto roared, jetting off out of the clearing. Sarada, while more reserved and understanding, also took her leave in a huff.

Konohamaru just shrugged as Mitsuki gave him an impassive look as he strolled by, before he turned around and began to follow his team back into town.

"Wait up, you guys! I'm sorry I'm late, okay?! Just hang on a second, would you!"

That slowed Boruto down, at least.

"WHAT?!" He shouted back behind him in exasperation, as he rounded the corner and walked back into the training ground impatiently. Sarada turned on her heels as well and shot a glare at her sensei, although she, at least, didn't say anything.

Mitsuki had barely moved from his place under the tree.

"If you guys leave now, I won't be able to give you your entrance paperwork, and you'll just fail right off the bat anyways!" Konohamaru said with cheeky grin, eyes shifting from student to student as he made his way over.

"Well why didn't you say so!" Boruto said, rolling his eyes, and jogging back to his sensei in a huff.

"Because I just got here," he deadpanned.

"Yeah, why were you two hours late, sensei?" Sarada said with a raised eyebrow, as she walked up and stood next to Boruto, who now had his arms crossed and a frown on his face.

"Oh! Uh… I was talking to…" he rubbed his hand through his hair apprehensively. "…someone about something important. You'll see soon." He reached into his jounin jacket and procured three sets of papers, one of which was quickly snatched from his hands by a rather vivacious blondie.

The other two were handed out as Boruto poured over the paperwork, making sure that everything was right, that he was _really_ going to be entering the exams, and that his dad wasn't going to pull some sort of omnipotent overprotective crap like he was afraid of.

As the three genin read their papers curiously, Konohamaru simply leaned back on the tree that his students had been occupying until just recently, finally getting a break for the first time that day. With a sigh, he rubbed his eyes and grumbled something incoherent. To Boruto's untrained ear, it sounded like a string of expletives with the word "Naruto" thrown in a few times.

The Uzumaki slammed his stapled stack of paper back into place, and raised a fist in the air. "Alright! Let's do this!" he called enthusiastically, before rolling his eyes again and turning to look at Konohamaru. "Unless there's something _else_ you have to give us first," he said indignantly.

"Actually, yes; there _is_ something else I have to give you," Konohamaru said with a small smile, before he simply closed his eyes and leaned his head back onto the tree trunk, hands now in pockets. "Good luck out there. I have the utmost faith in all three of you."

Boruto just blinked, before he smirked confidently. "C'mon, sensei, we would expect nothing less!" He crammed the wad of paper into the side of his shinobi boot, grabbed his two teammates' hands, and bolted off towards the Academy to begin the first test.

Konohamaru shook his head with a smirk, eyes still closed. "Those kids…" he said to himself, as their silhouettes disappeared behind a line of trees.

* * *

"How was I supposed to know that was a genjutsu?!"

"Because, you imbecile, it was a _test_. You weren't _supposed_ to be able to tell it was a genjutsu without a second glance!"

"Then how did _you_ figure it out so fast, huh?!"

"Because I _did_ give it a second glance!"

Boruto rolled his eyes, but gave a small smile. Thank Kami he had Sarada on his team. Otherwise, they'd still be down there rabbling about with a bunch of subpar genin.

"Well, hey, thanks for giving it a second glance, then," he said quietly, so that only she could hear.

Sarada just kept walking beside her teammates as they made their way down the long, winding wooden hallways of their old stomping grounds – the Shinobi Academy. Still, she rolled her eyes with a smile, shaking her head, as she heard her teammate thank her.

"Pshht. Whatever," she said humbly, blowing off the compliment. "Just promise to make up for it in the second test."

"What about the first test?" Boruto mumbled with a pout. "I can read a book too, y'know. It'll be easy."

"You realize that it-"

Sarada's lecturing was cut short by their arrival at their destination – the large lecture hall at the back of the building. Normally, she would have continued verbally berating him long after entering wherever it was they were going, much to Boruto's chagrin, but they were startled when a blast of chakra and a bright yellow-orange light flashed in front of them the moment they got within ten feet of the door.

The three genin blinked at first, trying to figure out what just happened, when they realized that the Seventh Hokage himself was now standing there, a huge grin on his face, arms on his sides, his ever-present white cape billowing behind him in some unseen wind.

Then, Boruto scowled, and made to keep walking through the door anyways.

"Whoa! Easy there, big guy!" Naruto joked, placing a hand on his son's shoulder, holding him in place. He looked down at the boy confusedly, before his grin flattened a bit at the expression Boruto had on his face.

Boruto just growled slightly to himself, refusing to make eye contact with his dad. "Go the hell away. Unless you intend to actually show up for real, don't bother talking to me."

"Boruto!" Sarada chided from behind him, obviously out of her trance from the Hokage appearing so suddenly like that. "Don't talk to the Seventh like that!"

"He's not just the Seventh!" Boruto spat with much more venom in his voice than normal. This shocked Sarada; normally, her bombastic blond teammate was loud and prideful, but he did it because he wanted to. He wasn't _actually_ mean, or annoying, or any of that.

Boruto just acted like that around the ones he felt the most comfortable with.

But this…

Sarada raised an eyebrow. At first, she had been incredibly jealous of her teammate for being the son of the most popular – and, according to rumor, the most powerful – ninja alive, all other nations withstanding. But every time she brought it up, her teammate would immediately skulk and brood about something that obviously was going on between the two blondes.

Now, seeing them interact this way in the flesh, it was painfully apparent.

"What do you mean?" she tested gently, her gaze not wavering. If he was having family problems, she'd get the bottom of things, damn it!

There was an awkward silence in the quiet hallway, where the four shinobi looked at one another tensely. Then…

"He's my dad too, y'know…" he mumbled quietly to himself, voice cracking in emotion towards the end.

A pained look of understanding flashed across the Hokage's face, but was gone as suddenly as it had appeared. Instead, he leaned down and gave Boruto a small, genuinely warm smile. "Yes, I am your dad. And you're my son. My _only_ son." He gently squeezed his son's shoulder, as if to confirm what he was saying as truth and not just simple conjecture.

After seeing Boruto turn away slightly, as if to try and escape his presence, Naruto sighed. "Hey. I just wanted to come by and wish you luck on your exams today, and over the rest of the month. You have no idea how proud I am of you, or just how much you mean to me. It's kind of crazy, actually." He let out a small laugh, rubbing the back of his neck with his free hand in nervousness. He was never the best at the whole 'dad' thing. Especially now that he was the father of a rather boisterous teenager.

Then again, was anyone particularly 'good' at it?

Then, his eyes flashed in acknowledgment, as he recalled what Boruto had said to him the moment he had arrived. "And if you're worried that I'm a shadow clone…"

He pulled a kunai out of Boruto's pouch and slit his palm with it without a second thought, blood dripping to the worn wooden floors of the Academy. Naruto raised an eyebrow at the gasp he heard from Sarada, and the "hmmph" he got from Boruto.

Then, he smirked. "That proof enough for you?"

Boruto seemed to soften a little at this, even stealing a glance at his father's face for a split second, as if to confirm – truly _confirm_ – that this man was his father, tried and true. But he just as quickly turned away again, as if he was afraid to know the answer.

"Why are you here."

It wasn't phrased as a question.

"Uhh…" Naruto said dumbly, not entirely sure what his son meant. Didn't he just explain himself?

Sensing the Hokage's confusion, Boruto scoffed, and tore away from his dad's grasp, crossing his arms and taking a few steps back. "Don't you have some sort of _Hokage shit_ to deal with?" he spat, still avoiding eye contact.

"Umm…" Naruto gaped, wide-eyed at the way his son had just addressed him. He thought that Boruto would be happy to see him properly for the first time in a few days, and for such an important event. Hell, it wasn't every day that the Hokage came to meet your genin team for nothing more than a social call.

Naruto sighed, and ran a tired hand through his blond hair. The bags under his eyes, as well as the wrinkles that had begun to frame his nose across his face, seemed to darken considerably.

It was then that Sarada realized just how much stress and trouble the Hokage went through. It wasn't just a flashy job that let one sit atop a golden throne and fling orders down to the people from the perspective of the mountain carvings.

If anything, it made her even _more_ determined to take the job later in life. She narrowed her eyes in silent determination, a slim grin breaking out across her face as she thought of her dream.

The current Hokage, however, was too occupied with trying to think to notice. "Well…" he said dumbly, grasping at straws. "I guess I should just be honest with you, then. My jounin-sensei, the Sixth, did this for me at the beginning of my first Chuunin Exams. It really helped me come to terms with who I was, who I wanted to become, and where I wanted to be in the future. It was…" he paused briefly, leaning back against the wall next to the door that led into the lecture hall, "…eye opening, to say the least." He let a small smile grace his lips at that, as his eyes faded out of focus, as if in silence reminiscence.

Which was broken by the low, trembling voice of his son.

"You mean to say." Boruto started, his anger starting to get the best of him, "That you're only here because you want to fulfill some sort of tradition."

"No, that's not it! I wanted-"

"SHUT THE HELL UP!"

Naruto and Sarada froze in surprise. Even Mitsuki raised an eyebrow at the outburst, from his position a few feet back.

The blonde boy had his hands clenched at his sides, eyes seething in rage. He was shaking uncontrollably, as if he was jumping back and forth across the line between crying and screaming in anger.

"It's bad enough that you don't give a damn about me. I can take that – hell, I can understand it. But…" Boruto's eyes began to water, as he broke eye contact with his flabbergasted father, body slumping a bit due to the rapid change in emotion, "…the fact you do it to mom and Himawari is unforgivable. They trust you, love you, defend you at every corner! But still… you just don't seem to get it."

A small tear leaked out of the corner of his eye, which he was quick to try and subtly bat away with his sleeve, sniffling slightly as he did so. Then, he turned on his heel and slammed through the door, entering the lecture hall in an explosion of wood-on-wood contact as the door bounced off the wall and closed behind him in a crash.

Sarada just stood there like a statue, gaping like a fish. ' _What the hell just happened…?'_

The Seventh didn't seem to be faring much better. His eyes darkened considerably, as if he was under considerable emotional pain. Sarada was beginning to think that he was.

Just _what_ was the man sacrificing for the good of the village?

He turned to leave robotically, mouth turned down in a small, sad frown. As he began to walk away, he remembered that he wasn't alone, and turned to offer one last statement to his son's teammates.

His eyes were glistening a little in the dimly lit hallway.

"Good luck."

And with that, he left at a slow and steady pace.

* * *

The walk home was one of the longest that he had ever taken. The harsh midday sun shone down on him like some sort of sick joke as he meandered his way slowly through the paved roads of the Leaf, only giving small smiles and reciprocating bows to all the citizens that offered him greetings as he went along.

Naruto Uzumaki was having an existential crisis, and the world around him seemed to be nothing but a faded blur that he was forced to occupy, like a puppet chained to the earth by some cruel, omnipotent god.

His hands fidgeted from within his pockets, his white cloak nipping him in the heels as walked.

It was the only reminder he had that he was even moving – rather, it was the only reminder that was actually registering in his brain.

As he passed by the Hokage Tower, he subconsciously summoned a Shadow Clone behind him, who appeared in a puff of smoke. He figured that Shikamaru would have a fit if he found out that he was skipping out on his job without a reason.

So, he was taking the rest of the day off.

Luckily, the clone he had sent to meet the Hidden Sea contingent upon their arrival was created before he had spoken to his son.

At that thought, the conversation he had just had with Boruto came flooding back into his mind unwarranted.

He blinked a few times in confusion as he replayed the events of their conversation back, feet moving on autopilot as he thought.

Naruto had honestly meant everything that he said. He loved his son – and his daughter, and his wife – unconditionally. That much was very often mentioned.

But still…

Those words _hurt._

Naruto couldn't tell what it was about them that was the most damaging, but he had walked out of the Academy feeling more emotionally broken than he had in a very, very long time.

Hell, this was almost _Jiraiya's death_ bad. If only he had some sort of quantifiable scale he could set his soul upon.

His mind wandered back to the conversations he had held with Nagato, Kakashi, and even Tsunade later on down the line. The things they had told him. The messages they had given.

Still, none of it made sense – at least, not in this context.

He brought his hands up to his hair and pulled exasperatedly, letting out a grumbled sigh of annoyance as he did so. Several villages raised their eyebrows at their expressive Hokage internally berating himself as he walked past, but they didn't mention anything. If Naruto was actually _there_ , he would have thanked them for their silence.

Instead, he was locked in a fierce internal struggle in his mind, as varying thoughts and feelings battled for supremacy within him. Yet, he couldn't for the life of him figure out what it was he was fretting so much over.

Then, his eyes widened considerably, pupils shrinking to the size of dust. He slammed on the brakes midway down the alleyway, nearly colliding with a few citizens as they tried to rush behind and around him through the daily paths their lives took them down.

As if a flip was switched, it finally dawned on him. And instead of soothing his aching heart, it only tore it up more.

He was confused, he was sad, he was angry – he was effectively lost in his way at the moment.

There was only one person that he could talk to right now – one person that he _needed_ to talk to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading - apologies for the two day delay! Next chapter should be up around Saturday.
> 
> Love you guys!  
> -Endo
> 
> \--
> 
> Original upload date: 5 July 2016  
> Official beta for this chapter: N/A


	3. Chapter 3

The confused look on Minato's face didn't recede for the entirety of his walk home that evening, nor did it falter when he was glomped by his wife upon walking through the door.

"Welcome home! What's _your_ problem?"

Minato broke out of his thoughts to look down at the confused and worried ball of red hair that was staring back at him. ' _Kushina_ was _always quite good at reading me,'_ he thought in mild exasperation.

This finally broke him out of his spell, and he gave an apprehensive smile in return, rubbing the back of his neck, as he always did.

She just stared expectantly.

"Umm, well… it's a long story," he said with a sheepish grin, finally returning the hug that Kushina had been forcing for those several awkward moments of disconnect.

"I'll say," came a third voice from the kitchen. Then, a moment later, an infamous mop of white hair poked its way around the corner into the hallway. "It has to be, considering you're late to your own dinner… party…"

Jiraiya's eyes glossed over as he took in the sight before him – Kushina clinging to Minato, and Minato simply giving her a small hug in return, a slightly embarrassed cringe gracing his face when he saw his sensei ogling over them from the doorway.

"You had better not be peeping," Kushina suddenly said with a deafening calmness, voice still muffled by Minato's clothes. Other than that, she didn't move a muscle.

The toad sage's eyes lit up like firecrackers, and he immediately backed away in a frenzied fervor. "N-No! No way! Well, not this time, at least!"

"Not… this time?" Minato muttered, raising an eyebrow.

Kushina looked up at him with a sinister grin. "Don't worry, honey; I took care of it."

A series of sounds could be heard from the kitchen table that sounded suspiciously like whimpers.

"Kushina," Minato chided in amusement, "Don't beat up Jiraiya-sensei."

"Beat up?! Why, no one can simply _beat up_ the legendary Lady-Wooing, Jutsu-Throwing Toad Sage Jiraiya!"

"Sure, sure!" Kushina shouted back across the house with an eyeroll, voice _dripping_ with sarcasm.

"Now, now, let's all get along here," the Fourth said with his trademark smile, moving to take his shoes off and properly enter the home.

"Oh! Yes!" Kushina clapped her hands together in excitement, jumping back to the kitchen, a bit more enthusiasm in her step than normal.

' _Right, ramen,'_ Minato internalized with a chuckle. It was a… somewhat _special_ occasion; so, naturally, Kushina had decided to embellish in the moment as much as possible and make her favorite food.

Not that Minato could complain. He was _starving_.

And after the day he'd had, it had only just recently hit him how hungry he actually was.

When his midsection butted in with a well-timed gurgle, he figured enough was enough, and padded into the kitchen, slowly taking off his coat and hanging it on his chair at the kitchen table, just as he always did. This time, however, was slightly different – considering the fact that the massive frame of his sensei was propped up in the seat to his left, leaning over the back of the chair nonchalantly, shooting a disarming grin at anyone who would care to take it. Kushina was slaving away in front of the stovetop, several decently sized pots bubbling away.

Sitting on the table, wrapped in bright red ribbons, were three reasonably-sized bottles of wine.

Minato chuckled a little at that. "Good call with the third bottle," he whispered loudly with a smile, so that Kushina could still hear him.

"Hey! A little wine won't make up for missing one of _my_ legendary dinners, y'know!" she shot over her shoulder at the duo.

Minato just rolled his eyes teasingly. "Yes, dear. Of course, dear."

There was the sound of an exasperated groan from the Hokage's left. "Aww, why is it that _you_ get to antagonize her, but I don't?" Jiraiya pouted, crossing his arms like an indignant child.

"Because, _sensei_ ," Kushina cooed, stepping away from her work, wrapping her arms around her husband's waist as she pulled him in for a hug. " _He_ at least had the decency to put a ring on it first."

Jiraiya's face went beet red, then he pointed an insulted finger at the couple, who were barely containing their snickering. "WAS THAT A THINLY VEILED INSULT TO MY RESEARCH? BECAUSE I'LL HAVE YOU KNOW-"

"Uhh, Kushina?" Minato interrupted with a worried smile on his face, pointing over his wife's shoulder. "Err, is that _supposed_ to be happening?"

Kushina frowned in confusion, blinked, and turned around to see several of the pots on the stovetop bursting into massive balls of fire.

"AAH! Uhh, shit! Shit, shit, shit, y'know!"

As his wife began to violently attack the flames with a few saturated towels, Minato just suppressed his laughter and slid into his seat at the table, subconsciously grabbing the glass of water that Kushina had left for him when she set it for dinner.

Jiraiya watched him with humored fascination as he took a rather innocuous swig, smacked his lips a little, and set the glass back on the table again. His mind began to wander…

"Trouble in paradise?"

Minato winced. Now that he thought of it, both Kushina _and_ Jiraiya could read him like an open book. Was it _really_ that obvious?

"Yes," Jiraiya said, closing his eyes contentedly, leaning back in his chair as he did so. "It _is_ that obvious."

With an exasperated eye roll, Minato sighed, and laced his fingers together, setting them down gently on the placemat in front of him. "Actually, something… happened today."

Jiraiya just cocked an eyebrow, nothing more. Minato took this as his sign to continue, and did so, frowning as he thought back to the events of the past few hours.

"It was… strange, to say the least," he began. "I was working in my office, finishing up whatever little paperwork I had left to do before I could come home to meet you here, sensei." He gave an apologetic smile to the sage, who just batted it off with a wave of his hand.

"Whatever. If you actually had a reason behind being late, unlike that good-for-nothing student of yours, then it's fine." He then continued to stare expectantly.

Minato sighed, running a hand through his hair, before leaning back in his chair in a rather un-Minato-like slump. "I don't know. It was just… strange. I was…" he scratched his neck as he brought it back down to his lap in one slow movement. "I was working in my office, when suddenly there was this massive explosion, and I'm blown out of my chair. Turns out it was that modified Hiraishin seal I was telling you about last week, sensei." He sheepishly looked the man in the eye. "I might actually need your help on this one. As far as I could tell, the seal is perfect – and I'm not saying that just to brag. But I spent the last two hours straight going over it with a fine-toothed comb, and that shouldn't have happened."

Jiraiya raised an eyebrow. "Blown out of your chair?" he repeated in surprise.

Then, he burst out laughing.

"Ohoho, I wish I could have been there to see _that_! Minato Namikaze, Fourth Hokage of the Hidden Leaf, the world-renowned Yellow Flash – blown out of his desk chair like a ragdoll by his own jutsu." He snorted a little, before procuring a small silver flask from his dark-green kimono in one fluid motion, taking a hearty swig. "I bet whoever was in there with you at the time must have laughed their asses off."

"That's just it," Minato stated emotionlessly, and Jiraiya's laughed died down as he watched the serious look on his student's face bloom like a weed. "There wasn't anyone in the room with me when it went off, but…" he sighed again, leaning back over the table, bags clearly visible under his eyes. "But there were two shinobi standing in the middle of my office when I came to, bickering about _something._ "

From the exasperation seeping through the Hokage's words, Jiraiya could tell that whatever it was they were discussing, it must have been remarkably trivial.

The Toad Sage "hmphed" in acknowledgement, shrugging his shoulders. "Who knows. Your secretary probably let them up and you just so happened to be unconscious at the time." He raised his flask in a mock toast. "Just thank Kami that they didn't see you lying on the ground, ass-over-teakettle. For none but I should be granted that privilege!"

The flask was finished off at that.

"No, sensei," Minato said, shaking his head, a small frown starting to take root. "I… I can usually tell how long I've been out for. I'm certain it was for only a split second, if at all. I would have noticed a Shunshin, or hell – even a Hiraishin. But this…"

He put his hands over his eyes and groaned slightly, rubbing out the sleepiness that was proliferating behind he clouded lids.

Jiraiya snorted slightly, setting the flask down on the table as the smoking figure of Kushina finally managed to win her battle of wills against… fire. "Couldn't they have just taken the stairs? Or walked in the door?" Then, something clicked in the Toad Sage's head. "Wait a minute, is that why you're so late? You stayed at the office just to check on that flimsy seal, didn't you?"

"It works fine," Minato mumbled behind his hands, still rubbing furiously. "And I checked with my secretary. She didn't let anyone in that entire morning, just like I asked her to. And all the privacy and border seals I placed when I moved up there were undisturbed." He narrowed his eyes. "There's something strange going on."

Jiraiya leaned back in his chair again, the wood creaking under his size as he did so. "Well, did you at least ask the shinobi how they got in so fast?"

The Hokage simply shook his head. "One of them Shunshined the other out once they noticed I was staring at them. I didn't get the chance to say more than one word to them before they left."

"Stagefright?" smirked the Sannin from his chair, watching in abject fascination as Kushina began to curse and swear at the ruined pot of ramen on the counter.

A single, faint chuckle was the Hokage's response. Then, "Who knows." Minato set his palms back on the table in a heap, obviously worked up over this.

"Look, kid," Jiraiya pressed, leaning forward a bit as well. "It was probably just a coincidence. I wouldn't worry about it."

"Sensei," Minato prompted with a furrow of his brow, "You of all people should know that coincidences don't occur in our line of work. I think that you were even the one that taught me that."

"He's right, y'know," Kushina butted in from across the kitchen, happily humming as she set aside some new, _less burnt_ noodles to be boiled.

Sensing where this was going, Jiraiya sighed, and shook his head. "Alright, fine, I'll look into this. What did these two random shinobi look like?"

Minato's lip twitched upward for a moment, before he steeled himself and recalled everything that he had seen those few moments between passing out and being alone in his office yet again.

"Well," he began, raising an eyebrow in contemplation, "One was just a child. Probably no older than thirteen or fourteen. The other was an older man, most likely in his late thirties. They…" Minato suddenly found it rather difficult to continue. "They had… blond hair. Really, _really_ blond hair." He looked up at Jiraiya apprehensively.

"How blond are we talking here?" Jiraiya said plainly, mentally committing the description to memory.

Minato just raised an eyebrow and pointed to his own messy mop of yellow-blond hair. This prompted a surprised reaction from his sensei, as he expected.

"I see," he said after thinking for a moment, before waving his hand in a gesture intended to allow Minato to continue.

"The kid had a pair of incredibly… electric blue eyes. Like sapphires."

"I never thought you a poet, Minato."

The man just shrugged noncommittally and continued. "The man's eyes… were almost exactly the same color as mine. Almost an exact match. I thought I was looking in a mirror at first. Granted, they were much larger and rounder in general, but the color… it was unmistakable."

A heavy silence settled in the air around the kitchen table, as Kushina continued to tend to her cooking nearby, the occasional sound of metal clanking or a pot of water being stirred being the only sound that echoed throughout their decent-sized kitchen.

Finally, Minato spoke again.

"But… most notably, probably, was the fact that they each had a set of rather… strange birthmarks on their faces. I thought scars at first, but in the short amount of their conversation I heard, the young boy called the man his father, so I'm assuming it's hereditary."

"What about the scars?" Jiraiya pressed. If he was going to track down these two men, he was going to need a decent picture in his mind. And considering facial markings of this type, it would be exponentially easier to pull off if he had a good idea as to what he was supposed to be looking for.

Minato started for a moment, before sighing. "They looked like… whisker marks. It was the strangest thing. The man had three on each cheek, the boy had two." He ran his hands through his hair one more time, disturbing the rather fragile equilibrium that kept his seemingly gravity-defying hair in place for just a moment, before the hair's own laws of physics kicked back in and it returned to its original shape. "I honestly don't know what to make of this. They were definitely strange characters, that's for sure."

Jiraiya couldn't help but find himself rather interested in the development all of a sudden. He leaned forward more in his chair, eyes narrowed, until he was practically putting most of his weight on the table between them. "What else? Anything strange?"

"Well, the kid was rather rude to his father," Minato remembered easily, counting off things on his fingers as he went. "And the father was mad about… something. I think it was something training-related. As if the boy was cheating, or incorrectly performing a jutsu, or something like that."

Then, he snapped his fingers, a spark igniting in his eyes as he recalled a rather vital piece of information from the brief exchange in his office. "Oh! That's right! The name of the boy is 'Boruto'. Maybe check around to see if he's a new genin, or perhaps a genin from another village here for the Chuunin exams next week?"

Jiraiya was seemingly broken from his trance, giving an exaggerated sigh. "Oh, come on Minato, do I have to do _all_ the work?" he pouted, bottom lip wobbling in a rather ridiculous display of discontent.

Minato shook his head with a small – very small – smile on his face. "No, no. Don't worry, I intend to investigate this further myself as well. It's not every day that people magically appear in my office."

His face hardened again suddenly, ready to finish his report. "One more thing. I _did_ try to pursue them, but the instant they Shunshined away, I couldn't sense them at all anymore. Not even with what little Sage Mode chakra I used." His eyes narrowed in thought. "Whoever the man was, he had an insane amount of power, if he was able to execute a perfect Shunshin over such a ridiculous distance."

"Either that," Jiraiya added with a raise of his thumb passively, a frown etched across his face, "Or they Shunshined to somewhere sealed in the village. Considering we're the only two seal masters here, and I didn't sense any of my seal triggers go off the last twelve hours or so, I'd say it would have to be somewhere that neither of us is aware of."

His eyes gained a rather vivacious gleam. This case was suddenly becoming rather interesting indeed.

"If that's the case," Minato said, paling slightly, "Then there's even more of a reason to figure out who those two were. If there's someone working on the inside, planning some sort of attack…"

He didn't need to finish that thought for its implications to hit home hard.

Jiraiya shook his head. "Alright, Minato, I'll see what I can do. If they're still in the village, I'll find them. This is a big deal – potentially a matter of village security. If those two are up to something, I'll stop it."

The Hokage managed a weak, exhausted, starving smile at that. "Thanks, sensei. I knew I could count on you."

The Toad Sage scoffed at the praise. "Oh, please. You're just lucky I didn't have to be back on the road for another few days."

At this moment, Kushina decided to make her grand entrance. She threw herself down in her chair like a sack of potatoes, smiling all the way. Her face was covered in black soot, and her clothes were singed here and there. "Soooo," she pressed, "how's it going?"

"Uhh, Kushina, are you sure you want to be over here chatting with us when you're cooking?" Minato asked nervously, giving a subtle glance at the burns in her clothes.

"Oh, pshh," she said with the wave of her hand. "I've been done for the past minute or two. Just waiting for you two to stop your 'super serious conversation' and come back to the real world." She raised her fingers in a set of mock air quotes for the latter part.

As if in anticipation, Minato's stomach let out a rather gurgled cry for help.

Kushina just threw her head back in laughter, looking somewhat ridiculous. "Oh man, you skipped lunch again, didn't you?"

The sad, pained expression on the Hokage's face was enough of an answer in itself.

"My, my; you're in a good mood today," Jiraiya said to Kushina with a small smile, watching the exchange passively.

The redhead just shook her head with a grin, turning to look at her husband's sensei happily. "Ramen," was all she said – a dangerous glint of crazed excitement bubbling behind her violet eyes.

Jiraiya sweatdropped. "Yeah, yeah. You two and your ramen."

Minato just raised a slight eyebrow. "Have you _had_ Kushina's ramen?"

As if on cue, a large steaming bowl of the aforementioned substance was plopped down in front of each man, as well as one for the chef herself.

"Alright, you two, eat up!" the jinchuuriki announced with a beaming smile, plopping herself down across from her husband and not even waiting for herself to completely come in contact with the chair before attacking her bowl with a… _disturbing_ vigor.

Minato, at least, was able to restrain himself, while Jiraiya simply sipped at it curiously, shrugging now and then in contentment.

The three ate their meal in silence – considering not much could be heard over the dull roar of a Category V tor-mato ripping through Ramendale. (1)

"Now, then," Jiraiya burped politely into his hand, leaning back in his chair with a subtle smile on his face, "I know you two. You didn't just invite me over to wine me and dine me, and considering that the events of _your_ day," he gave a pointed glance at Minato, "Didn't transpire until _after_ you invited me, I have a hunch that it wasn't that either."

"How very astute of you, sensei," Minato said with a small smile, not betraying his sarcasm in the slightest. "Actually, it wasn't just me that wanted to talk to you."

Kushina finished wiping the carnage off of her face with her napkin in a rather unbefitting, dainty manner, and smiled at her husband. She brought her hand across the table, and he took it in his, smiling back, as they both turned to look at Jiraiya's rapidly paling face.

"Okay, I don't know what's going on, but it's kinda creeping me out…" he mumbled in slight worry.

"Relax, silly," Kushina said, rolling her eyes. "It's not that big of a deal. Well, not _really_ that big of a deal, y'know."

Minato sent Kushina a look - one that simply asked, ' _Do you want to start, or should I?'_

She seemed to prefer the latter. Minato squeezed her hand supportively, as he began to speak.

"Well, sensei, as you know, we're planning on starting a family one day."

"Uh oh," the Toad Sage grinned. "Did you two finally procreate? Too bad I wasn't there to-"

"SHUT YOUR HOLE!" Kushina bellowed at the top of her lungs, face beet red. "Neither of us are ready for kids yet, okay?!"

"Umm, Kushina? Why don't you let me do the talking?" Minato asked with a polite smile, a bead of sweat beginning to pool across his forehead. Not bothering to wait for her answer, he turned back to his sensei. "No, we're not quite there yet. But we know we do want kids someday. So, consider this as a sort of… preemptive decision."

Jiraiya just raised an eyebrow. "Preemptive decision?" he parroted in confusion.

Minato sighed, and smiled. "Well, Kushina and I would like permission to use the name from one of your books."

The Toad Sage blinked. " _That's_ what this is all about?"

Then, he burst into laughter.

The Namikaze and the Uzumaki each raised an eyebrow at the eruption, then shared a quick glance between the two of them in the sort of unspoken language that married couples were infamous for.

After Jiraiya wiped away the tears with the flick of his hand, he leaned forward on the table a bit, sighing in contentment as he did so, nonchalantly looking back and forth between the couple. Then, he waggled his eyebrows at Kushina, and broke out into a cheeky grin. "One of my books, eh? Which one? Makeout Tactics? Makeout Paradise? Ooh! Is it one of my short stories, where I go into rather _intimate_ detail about-"

"No! No…" Minato sighed with a frustrated huff, running a hand through his hair once more. "None of that. No, I'm talking about your first book, sensei."

Jiraiya raised a condescending eyebrow. "Pfft, that old thing?"

"It's pretty good, y'know," quipped Kushina, as she crossed her arms in front of her with a shrug, leaning back in her chair in a relaxed slump. "Why the hell didn't it sell as well as the rest of your crap?"

Jiraiya reciprocated the shrug smoothly, a cheeky grin on his face. "What can I say? Smut sells." (2)

His smile became much more warm and serious, and he simply nodded once. "Regardless, go for it. I don't care one way or another. It'll be an honor." Then, he leaned in curiously, looking at his student with narrowed, beady eyes.

"So…" he whispered with a grin, "Which name did you pick?"

"Gah! Don't look at us like that! It's creepy!" groaned Kushina exasperatedly, standing up in a huff and gathering the dishes. "Honestly, Minato, I don't know how you put up with him half the time."

She just rolled her eyes and walked off for a moment, gently setting the used bowls in the empty sink, then returned to the table with a topped-off glass of water.

Minato just let out a long, deep sigh at the ridiculousness of the people he surrounded himself with. Then, he remembered that Jiraiya had asked them a question, and folded his hands over one another, leaning forward onto the table slightly with a small smile.

"Naruto."

He looked his sensei in the eye, who merrily smirked in affirmation.

"You know, that name's got a lot of pedigree. Well, at least its origin does. I hope that your little Naruto lives up to expectations."

Minato gave his first honest, energetic smile of the evening. He looked back over at his wife affectionately, who gave a small smile back, and they locked hands once again across the top of the table.

"With parents like us," the Hokage beamed, "Our Naruto's bound to be something else."

* * *

"Dad?! Dad!"

"Nngh… stop yell'n', Bor'to…"

"Dad! Wake up! What the hell is going on?!"

Boruto began to shake his father's barely-conscious form, as he laid across the floor in what the younger Uzumaki could only assume was some sort of cave structure.

It was dark, it was wet, it was cold, it was quiet…

…it was terrifying, if he was honest.

It was surprisingly dark in the expanseless cave – although not completely pitch black. He could make out silhouettes and figures in the dark, but that was the extent of it.

Just him and his suddenly very pale and sweaty father, who was collapsed on the ground, not unlike the piles of rocks that littered the rather decently sized cavern they were inhabiting.

A panic began to settle in his gut – a feeling that he had honestly never felt before. Well, not to this extent, perhaps. But it was all so new, so fresh - so gutwrenchingly horrid. He began to pound on his father's chest weakly, eyes wide in the darkness, breaths coming out in short and pained gasps.

"Dad… please…"

Naruto groaned on the floor, curling into a shivering ball underneath the pelting from his son's fists.

With an exasperated shout, Boruto turned and kicked his father in the gut before turning and frantically looking around the dark cave for signs of life, an exit – _anything_.

But from what he could see, they were completely trapped.

And he had no way to know which way to start to dig, if it came to that.

"Ughh…"

Boruto blinked in the darkness, and shot back around to look at the groaning figure of his father shaking on the floor, eyes pressed shut like vices.

"Dad?" he asked again worriedly, and he let out a sigh of relief when the Seventh Hokage relaxed a bit upon hearing his voice.

"Boruto…" the man grunted in pain, attempting to sit up from the rocky floor. "What… what the hell's going on?"

"I was about to ask you the same thing!" the boy panicked, quickly sitting down over his father, waiting for him to get up and explain just _what_ the hell they were doing inside of some creepy-ass cave.

Naruto let out a rather pained groan as he attempted to sit up, before nearly collapsing back onto the ground. He would have, too, were it not for Boruto grabbing him and holding him steady.

"Dad? DAD! What the HELL is going on?!" he shook, watching as his father's face grimaced in pain from the action.

"Not so rough, Boruto," Naruto hissed, face cringing in different directions. "I don't know what's happening, but my chakra system's… all out of… wack…"

He struggled to spit out the last few words, and began to clutch at his stomach as he did so. "Yeah… definitely… not good…"

After a few tense moments where Naruto simply sat there shaking, and Boruto was merrily glad his father was awake again.

"…Dad?" Boruto pressed again, worried that the deafening silence they were drenched in signaled his father's slip back into unconsciousness.

Naruto's eyes suddenly shot open, and they darted all across the cavern: the floor, the ceiling, the form of his own slumped body lying underneath him, his son's terrified expression on his face.

Boruto reeled in shock at what he saw.

"Wh-what the hell…" he stuttered, jumping to his feet as he stared at the place on his father's face that had always housed a pair of loving, emotional, powerful blue eyes.

Now, however, they were blood red.

Instead of the usual black pupil floating amicably across a sea of cerulean, there were two onyx slits running vertically through crimson irises, which were still darting across their strange environment with a confused gleam.

And they were _glowing_.

Finally, they settled on him, and Boruto had to resist the urge to flinch, run away, and hide.

The eyes immediately widened when they saw the amount of fear that he was leaking like a running faucet.

"…Boruto?" Naruto asked faintly, moving to get up, before he groaned in pain, and doubled over himself with a wheeze. He raised his head to meet his son's eyes once again, who hadn't moved an inch.

"…Dad… Your eyes…"

Naruto blinked, granting the boy some brief respite from the terrifying aura those… _things_ were oozing.

"What about them?"

"They're… they're red…" he muttered quietly, as if afraid that speaking too loud would end his life.

Naruto blinked, and then cringed again, this time with a barely-suppressed groan.

"Makes sense," he grunted out, and Boruto just blinked.

' _What the hell is that supposed to mean?'_

"Where the hell are we?" Naruto suddenly asked, interrupting Boruto's shaken train of thought. "This isn't where I Shunshined us at all…"

"Wait, so you _did_ send us here?" Boruto asked, a familiar frown creeping its way back onto his face.

Naruto just grimaced again – although the Uzumaki heir couldn't tell this time whether it was out of pain, or out of annoyance.

He got his answer pretty quickly, however. "No, I didn't; what the hell did I _literally_ just say?"

Naruto winced when he saw his son shrink back from him at that. "Sorry," he muttered, turning his gaze to the floor of the cavern once again. "I get a little mean when I'm in pain like this…"

"Hmph," Boruto grunted in affirmation, still refusing to meet his father's gaze.

Naruto made to stand up, and actually managed to accomplish it, albeit shakily. He leaned an arm across the far wall of the cave, and closed his eyes again in concentration, beads of cold sweat running down his body.

"Why the hell is this happening…" he muttered to himself angrily, before slowly opening his eyes to check on his son. "Are you okay?" He asked a little embarrassedly. "Sorry I didn't ask earlier. A little preoccupied at the moment, in case you couldn't tell…"

"I'm fine," Boruto mumbled, crossing his arms over his chest with the raise of his eyebrow. "What the heck is wrong with _you_ , though?"

Naruto gave a single hollow laugh, before sliding back down the wall into a sitting position, a feeble hand held gingerly over his gut. "Wish I knew," he said with a pained smile. "Something's wrong with my chakra…"

"Chakra exhaustion?" Boruto asked tensely.

Naruto shook his head slowly, still looking off vaguely at nowhere in particular. "No… more like chakra overabundance… My body can't handle…"

Then, he snapped to attention, his vulpine eyes widening to their maximum potential, and he began to breathe shakily.

"Wh…what the hell? Why are _all_ nine of you -"

Boruto raised an eyebrow, but quickly yelped in shock when his father's eyes shot up into his skull, and he slumped forward in unconsciousness.

"Dad? Dad! DAD?!"

* * *

_Drip_.

**"Damn, Kurama, this place looks like shit."**

**"Would you shut your damn mouth! It's a hell of a lot better than what any of you had, that's for sure! At least I can** ** _move_** **!** "

_Drip._

**"Hmph! Well, you're the idiot that decided to stay locked up!"**

**"Grr…"**

**"Would you two cut it out!"**

_Drip_.

The great Nine-Tailed Demon Fox grumbled something incoherent in discontent. "Damn raccoons," he muttered, slumping against the wall.

He took a cursory glance at his surroundings and had to admit that the massive sand priest was at least partially right – his current home was certainly a far cry from the lush and fruitful forests he remembered living in during his roaming days. The dark and gloomy sewage system that his jailor – well, _former_ jailor – had for a mind left a _lot_ to be desired.

He raised a paw out of the gooey layer of watery substance that coated the floor of his home with a scowl, and flicked off whatever residual moisture that had rooted itself in his fur with a quick shake, before sighing and looking around the rest of the room.

The cavernous cellar was certainly _roomy_ enough, that was for sure. The entrance to the room – the one that Naruto came and went from, most likely to head to the other parts of his subconscious – was lit in a somewhat bright, sourceless, ethereal glow: but that was it. Whatever little amount of light that trickled out of the haze only went so far into Kurama's side of the cage, basking most of the expansive room in a dark, depressing shadow.

About one hundred feet from the small, human-sized hallway that stood at the head of the sewage hall hung a pair of massive, golden gates – open now, of course. Their massive forms laid pinned against the walls of his cage, somewhat signifying freedom.

Kurama sighed. He knew, deep down, that all he had to do was force a little against his container's body to be released, but that wasn't something he was willing to do anymore. Maybe once before, in the past – but not now. Certainly not after they had coexisted together, as friends, as comrades, for so long. Hell; what'd it been now, twenty years?

The fox rolled its eyes in thought. He was a massive chakra construct with a consciousness attached almost as an afterthought. He _had_ no true perception of time. Well, no perception for a time change as minute as twenty measly years.

But still, his human friend – his _only_ human friend clutched onto those figures with an iron grip. They meant something to him; so, in respect, they meant something to Kurama as well.

It was only fitting.

Still, the Nine-Tailed Fox contemplated busting out of his host the hard way, for no other reason than to punish him for whatever _absolutely ridiculous_ stunt he had pulled this time.

With a sigh, he turned his attention further into the dark bowels of his home, and was met with the angry glares of eight other pairs of eyes.

He had known that some of his siblings' chakra resided within Naruto as a sign of good faith, of trust; but that was the extent of it.

It sure as hell wasn't enough to constitute the sealing of their _entire beings_ into the boy, along with him.

But still, there they stood, angrily fuming at their loss of freedom once again.

The Eight-Tails shook its head in exasperation. **"Look, if you two are going to fight all day, then wait until** ** _after_** **we've figured out what the hell is going on, would you? I want to get back to Bee – that is, if he's still okay…"**

 **"Yeah, just what the hell** ** _is_** **going on here? Kurama! What did you do?"** roared Son Gokuu in indignation, bashing on the ground with his massive apelike fists, sending blasts of water into the faces of his fellow tailed beasts.

" **Knock it off!"**

**"Kurama! Answer the damn question!"**

**"Look, I didn't do anything! I should be asking all of** **_you_ ** **the same thing; what the hell are you doing in my jinchuuriki?!"**

Sensing an exponential rise in tension, Gyuuki stepped in once again. **"Look, it's obvious** ** _none_** **of us understand what's going on, so why bother beating each other up over it?"**

 **"Hmph,"** the fox grumbled, and was echoed by his other riled-up siblings.

But the Eight-Tailed Ox-topus wasn't quite finished. **"Kurama, why don't you summon Naruto? He can help explain this."**

Shukaku waggled his lone tail in agitation. **"Hey, yeah! This has that brat's name written all over it!"**

 **"Fine, fine, whatever,"** the Kyuubi mumbled, turning around and looking at the empty doorway at the end of the hall. **"Looks like he finally realizes you lot are here, too. Might as well pull him down here anyways."**

As if on cue, the orange-clad form of the Seventh Hokage stumbled through the entryway with the same grace and poise as Tsunade walking home from a bar on a typical Tuesday afternoon. He rubbed his head and grumbled something to himself in indignation, before turning to look at his personal tailed beast with a scowl.

"Could you have _at least_ waited until I finished talking to my son first?" he deadpanned.

The fox simply barred its teeth and narrowed its eyes. **"No."**

Naruto rolled his eyes. "Fine, whatever," he muttered, moving into the rest of the room and settling down in the middle, near where the massive latch of the gate's seal used to sit within the room.

It was at this point that his vision adjusted, and he caught sight of eight more furious figures residing amid the darkness.

He blinked, and leaned in closer, as if worried this was some sort of dream.

"Shit," he muttered, wide-eyed. "I was honestly hoping I was wrong when I sensed all of you in here. I guess it makes sense then."

 **"You guess** ** _what_** **makes sense, boy?!"** bellowed the Four-Tails angrily. **"I don't have the time or patience to deal with your lip service! Just tell us what the hell is going on and get us out of here!"**

Naruto sweatdropped. "Hey, _here_ happens to be _me_ ," he said with a pout. "It's not that bad, right, Kurama?"

He turned to the fox expectantly, who merrily shrugged noncommittally and padded off a bit until he was standing next to his kin.

"Jerk," Naruto sulked, rolling his eyes. Then, he turned his attention to the other tailed beasts. "Regardless, I have no idea what's happening. I was kind of hoping that you had some idea, because I'm honestly stumped." He rubbed the back of his neck in anxiety, a frown deepening on his face. "Usually I have Shikamaru to help me work my way through things like this…" he muttered, narrowing his eyes at the watery floor he was standing on.

Then, his eyes shot open, and he fell to the floor in a pained heap, gasping for breath.

 **"Hmm. Looks like you're about to reach critical mass,"** smirked the Nine-Tails, crossing his arms. **"Serves you right for cluttering up the place."**

 **"CLUTTER?! Are you calling the rest of us CLUTTER?!"** roared Shukaku, leaping in front of Kurama with a deafening crash.

Naruto ignored them as they began to bicker amongst one another once again – mainly because his hearing had been reduced to a dull, ringing ache, as his vision began to spin and blur dangerously.

The only thing he was able to make out before being ripped back out of his own mind into the real world was the crimson red water that was beginning to pool around his body in the sewage sludge, tainted by his own blood, leaking from his mouth.

* * *

"Not good…" he muttered, flickering back into consciousness. The cold sweat had gotten significantly worse, and his shaking now looked more like spasms.

Suddenly, the voice of his companion began to echo in his skull. **"Look, I don't want you to die as much as** ** _you_** **don't want you to die, so I suggest you do something – and fast."**

Naruto grimaced – or frowned, one of the two. ' _Yeah, and what do you suggest I do?'_

The bijuu just snorted from within his mind. **"Hell if I should know. What do you humans usually do when you have too much chakra?"**

Naruto deadpanned. ' _It's not exactly a common issue. But I'm assuming that I have to do something really big – and really chakra taxing – in order to balance everything out. Or…'_

He raised an eyebrow in concentration. ' _No, I suppose that wouldn't work. I can't just pump it out into nature using some sort of bastardized Sage Mode.'_

**"…why not?"**

' _I don't know, Kurama, okay?! Cut me some slack, it's hard to think when you're about to explode from the inside out.'_

Then, he frowned. ' _Which reminds me. Are your siblings still there?'_

 **"Unfortunately,"** mumbled Son Gokuu with a hint of indignation.

Naruto sighed, and winced as another bolt of chakra was sent through his system, disrupting his already fragile balance even further. ' _Guys – I'm gonna have to ask for a big favor.'_

He could feel several of the Bijuu within his gut " **hmph"** out of spite, but luckily, the ever-levelheaded Eight-Tails broke in before any of the other, more condescending Tailed Beasts could get a word in edgewise.

" **As long as you promise to get us out of here quickly, I'm open to anything, Naruto."**

Naruto smiled for the first time that evening – albeit small. ' _Thanks Gyuuki. I appreciate it.'_

" **What the hell are you listening to the brat for?"** bumbled Shukaku. " **For all we know, this could all be his fault!"**

 **"Something makes me seriously doubt that for some reason. Call it intuition."** There was a brief pause, before several of the other beasts gave their input after a moment of contemplation.

 **"I trust Naruto, as well as Gyuuki, Shukaku. I say we give whatever it is he has in mind a chance,"** purred the Two-Tails.

" **Why not?** " Choumei buzzed blithely.

Isobu simply grunted in agreement, shortly followed by the others.

Son Gokuu simply sighed from within Naruto's head. **"It seems that once again I am trusting you blindly, Naruto. You had better not mess this up."**

Naruto sighed quietly to himself in relief. ' _Alright. Look, the fact that you're all here and not exactly sealed in me means that all of your chakra is flooding my system, and I can't handle it. I have to… well… jettison most of it. Otherwise, I'm gonna pop – if you can call popping 'detonating with the strength of several hundred tailed beast bombs and leveling three quarters of the continent'.'_

" **You want us to just** ** _give up_** **all of our chakra?!"**

_'Right now? Yeah. I need to channel it nondestructively out of my system. And if I am going to figure out how to fix whatever the hell is happening, I need time. If you guys end up staying for… longer than expected, then you can slowly start to trickle more of your chakra into my system. I'm sure you all know how that works.'_

Another round of grunts was his answer. **"Alright, brat, fine. Just don't drain us dry."**

Naruto smirked. ' _If you all reduce your levels to as low as you can go, and Kurama gets rid of half of his, I should be able to cope with it. It'll still hurt like hell the first few days, but I can handle it.'_

 **"You want me to reduce my power to half of its full potential, just for these fools?"** roared the Nine-Tails in fury, causing Naruto to cringe once more – this time in discomfort from having his mind shake and rattle under the beast's might.

Naruto scowled. ' _Look, I don't like this as much as you do. But if I'm gonna live through this, and if you don't want to end up taking the next few dozen years reforming somewhere, we've got to cut corners.'_ Then, he sighed. ' _I'm sorry, but this is the only way for the time being. At least you can replenish your chakra later.'_

Naruto could practically _feel_ the beast smirking inside his head. **"Whatever. I suppose that it's a small price to pay so that the likes of you doesn't pop under our tremendous might."**

 **"** **_Our_ ** **tremendous might? Why, Kurama, that's the nicest thing you've ever said to us!"**

Once again, Naruto could feel the strange conjointed feeling of the Two-Tailed cat Matatabi holding in her laughter, as the face of the great Demon Fox glowered at her.

Refocusing his attention, he opted to try and figure out just _where_ exactly he was, and how to get out.

And quickly. He had barely minutes left, it felt like.

Frantically looking around the cave, he saw his son sitting next to him, seemingly asleep, head leaning against the back of the stone façade in a scene of almost perfect peace.

With what little physical energy had left that was NOT going to quelling his overloaded chakra coils, Naruto leaned over and prodded his son as gently as he could in the shoulder.

The boy shot to attention immediately, lightning blue eyes darting across the darkness, before finally grimacing as they settled on Naruto's own.

"Hey," muttered Naruto hoarsely, still clutching the clothes nearest to where his seal _used_ to be.

"…Hi." Boruto said, narrowing his eyebrows. "Finally up again?"

"Up again?" questioned Naruto quietly, raising an eyebrow.

Boruto just sighed – partially in exhaustion, partially in frustration. "Yeah, you were out for, like, three hours, woke up for three minutes, and then were out again for another twenty."

Naruto blinked. ' _Three hours?'_

Another train of thought was violently derailed when a flicker of blood-red chakra oozed out of his pores aggressively, lighting the dark cave up like a midsummer's sunset.

Boruto jumped to his feet and immediately backed away, holding a kunai to his chest protectively.

"What the hell are you…?" he glowered, staring down at what appeared to be his father, writhing on the ground.

"Bor'to… don't have much… time left…" he grimaced.

Then – an idea. "Can you… Shunshin…?"

The boy blinked, the grip on his knife loosening ever so slightly. "Uhh… yeah?"

"How… far…"

Boruto just raised a confused eyebrow. "Why are you asking me-"

"JUST ANSWER THE DAMN QUESTION!"

Quaking a bit, eyes like saucers, Boruto managed to blurt out an answer. "I… I can go a few hundred feet, but that's it! I don't have nearly enough chakra!"

Naruto grimaced in affirmation, panting slightly. "Good… can you… do hand… seals… and… move other… people?"

The blond-haired boy just nodded tersely, suddenly fearing for his life.

Then, his father gestured for him to come closer. Boruto's heart began to pound in his throat – the energy that Naruto was emitting was terrifyingly toxic. It caused his entire being to seize up in terror – and yet, he still had the roaring inclination in the back of his head to turn tails and run.

Still, something – _something_ – forced his legs to move to his father's side, who only smiled painfully at the expression that Boruto had on his face.

"Don't be… 'fraid…" he sputtered out, before extending his hand towards the boy. "Can you… take us… to… Valley of… End?"

He doubled over again in pain, letting out a strangled groan.

"What?! The Valley of the End? Isn't that, like, 100 miles away? And a massive crater?!"

Naruto just shook his head, physical exhaustion from holding everything in beginning to take hold. "Don't… worry about distance… I can supply chakra. You just… have to… do the actual jutsu… chakra control shit right now…"

The Hokage shook his outstretched arm in the air expectantly – although Boruto couldn't tell if it a was deliberate act, or another spasmodic shake.

Trepidatiously, Boruto took his father's cold, clammy hand.

And immediately doubled over in pain as he felt his own chakra network be brimmed with a massive amount of energy.

Wincing slightly, he opened his eyes to see that he was shrouded in some sort of red chakra shroud – it flickered around him like bubbling, boiling water, lapping at his clothes and skin like ocean waves. It was warm – almost too warm, but Boruto was too busy reeling from the internal pressure to notice.

"Boruto… Do the jutsu…" Naruto hissed through clenched teeth, still holding his son's arm carefully, watching in worry at the expressions the boy was making from having that much chakra flood his system so suddenly.

With a gasping grunt, the boy nodded, and immediately began to focus on the location he had only heard about in textbooks and stories from his friends. Still, he had a pretty vague idea as to where to go.

Boruto shouted in pain, then in effort shortly after. "SHUNSHIN NO JUTSU!"

And the duo were gone in a flash of wind and leaves.

* * *

Immediately after arriving, both Uzumaki collapsed onto the stone latticework that towered over a large lake, mounted to two massive cliff faces.

Boruto clutched at his gut in pain as the demonic chakra – at least, what he could only assume was demonic chakra – receded from his system. He took a deep breath as the pain receded, and turned to look around at where he was.

Boruto raised an eyebrow at what he saw. The forests of the Land of Fire girdled the massive valley like a soft blanket, showering the entire region in a warm, endearing green glow, even as the sun set on the horizon.

The two of them were standing – well, one was standing, at least – atop the heads what looked to be two massive statues, carved into the cliff face itself. The sun was beginning to dip below the treeline in the distance, casting massive shadows across the landscape and basking the entire continent in a tranquil sea of light orange hues.

"Hmph," Boruto heard a grunt to his side, and saw that his father was smiling, one eye slammed shut in a wince. "This place brings back memories."

Boruto ignored his father's musings to gape at his appearance.

Naruto was pale – deathly pale. Almost as pale as his academy friend, Inojin. While a normal coloring for some, Naruto typically had sunkissed skin that glowed in the sunlight. Not now, however; the orange color of his longsleeve, collared shirt seemed almost _too_ bright in contrast with the ghostly whiteness of its wearer.

But that wasn't all. Now, Boruto could finally see.

And his dad looked bad.

_Really bad._

His whisker marks – the ones typically identical to his own – were jagged, deep gashes across his face now; and they were much, much more feral looking than before. His eyes were just as frightening in the waning daylight as they were in the darkness of the cave, although they weren't specifically looking at him anymore, which made Boruto shudder with relief.

His father's hair was matted and doused with his own sweat, sticking out in all directions haphazardly – rather, much more haphazardly than normal.

His clothes were all wrinkled and askew across his narrow frame, and flickered now and then in the wind currents that rushed through the valley below and up and over the two stone figures.

Then, Naruto noticed something. "Wait… what…?" he gaped, realizing where they were standing.

"Wasn't this place destroyed?" Boruto asked with a frown on his face, walking up to his father's side, who was now wide-eyed and blubbering.

"Why… why _isn't_ it destroyed?" Naruto stammered, shaking his head in confusion. "What the hell is going on here? First some asshole is impersonating my father in my own office, then _they're_ all here, and now-"

He doubled over once again in pain, shattering whatever little concentration he was able to hold on the outside world.

"Boruto…" Naruto clenched his teeth together sickeningly, and the boy realized that his canines had sharpened and grown to be much, _much_ more vulpine than normal. "Get… get back. Get to the other side of the valley. This is gonna… be big. And bright. I don't want you to get… hurt…"

The Uzumaki boy simply blinked once, then nodded determinedly at the seriousness in his father's eyes, jumping away quickly.

Almost as soon as Boruto cleared the two massive stone heads of the founders of their village, Naruto let out a roaring scream, holding his hands above his head in some sort of strange stance.

Boruto raised an eyebrow. ' _Is that… the Rasengan? What's he doing that for?'_

His first question was answered when a small blue ball of chakra manifested itself above his father's fingertips. That much was apparent, even from several hundred feet away, as Boruto settled in atop a tree down the waterfall and across the valley from the massive statues.

It was almost… a beautiful sight, he had to admit.

Then, the blue sphere began to expand, and flicker a vibrant red shade. It grew and grew and grew, until it was nearly as large in diameter as Boruto himself.

He blinked at the sight, honestly surprised that his father was that adept at the legendary jutsu. Sure, he knew that his dad had developed different variations of the technique, but the extent of his advances was still a mystery to the genin.

Whatever doubts that had lingered in the back of Boruto's mind were instantly shattered when the density of the ball began to blacken, darker and darker, until it was nearly the color of ink.

Then, the top portion of the sphere flickered and fluctuated.

And the entire valley _exploded_.

"Augh!" Boruto slammed his arm into his eyes to prevent any lasting damage from the dark orange-red burst of pure chakra that was spewing out into the heavens, thicker than lava, brighter than the sun.

It was so bright, in fact, that the entire forest, and everything in its vicinity turned a vibrant, blinding white. Even with his hands over his eyes, and his lids smashed shut in pain, Boruto was _still_ seeing stars – they dug into his retina like shovels, picking away, ever so slowly at his sanity.

Then, the shockwave hit.

Trees were uprooted, water was instantly vaporized; the air stunk of petrified ozone. Boruto himself was flung into the air like a ragdoll, and it took all of his strength and training in order to right himself midair and seek out an appropriate landing site – nearly a _quarter mile_ away from where he was standing only moments before.

With a stifled "oof!" and a sickening crunch, Boruto smashed into the trees across the forest like a meteorite, breaking branches and treetrunks and (most likely) bones as he did so.

Finally – _finally_ – he stopped his graceless plummet back to earth in a tangled mess of tattered clothing and ruptured skin.

He laid there for a few moments, before letting out a low groan of pain and moving to begin getting up.

"Oooooowwwwww…."

He shook his head a bit in agitation, trying to shake the spots burnt into his retina away for the moment, before remembering just _how_ he ended up here.

His father.

His father had done _that_.

Boruto couldn't help but gape, as he cringed and turned to look back at the place that his father was still occupying – a good 500 yards away. The light was still insurmountably bright, and Boruto had to strain carefully past his outstretched hand's silhouette in order to just barely make out the form of the Seventh Hokage, underneath a massive – _massive –_ beam of red energy that was pulsing into the sky like a beacon to the gods. Naruto's clothes were beginning to singe and burn – that much was obvious, even from so far away – but still he endured, standing steadfast atop the crumbling visage of Hashirama Senju.

Then, with all the pizazz of the flicking of a lightswitch, the beam of energy died off after what seemed like _hours_ of perpetuation. It faded from the width of the entire valley, to simply that of the statue it was being released above, to that of Naruto's own size – until it was simply just a flickering pinprick, splashed across the slowly darkening sky.

Then, it was gone, and the quiet whispers of the forest began to return.

With a stifled grunt, Boruto made to stand, only to cry out in pain when his right leg buckled over itself in a grotesque fashion.

' _Definitely broken_ ,' he cringed, falling backwards again, and clutching his thigh in discomfort.

Then, there was a flicker of light and smoke before him, and the dilapidated form of Boruto's father materialized in front of him.

"Boruto?!" he panicked immediately, after seeing the state of his son. "Are… are you okay? I told you to get far enough back!" He rubbed the back of his neck sadly. "Granted, that was much, _much_ bigger than what I was expecting, but it's all over now."

He turned his attention back to the boy, and Boruto realized that his father's eyes had returned to their cobalt shade, steeped in concern.

"I'm fine," he grumbled, but the grimace on his face when he moved his lower leg betrayed his voice, causing it to crack under the strain.

Naruto shook his head and immediately began to root around the crash site for a small, yet thick length of branch to secure Boruto's leg with.

After finding a suitable candidate, he bent over and gently placed it parallel to Boruto's limp leg. "That'll work," he breathed to himself, before frantically looking around for something to tie it off with.

His eyes settled on his bandaged right arm.

Without a second thought, the creamy-white bandages were unraveled from his eggshell-colored right hand in an instant, and he began to wrap the gauze securely around his son's leg – both above and below the point of fracture.

Boruto just watched in abject fascination as his father did the one thing that he had never seen him do before – take the bandages off of his right arm. For as long as he could remember, that hand was _always_ covered, all the way up to the shoulder. It was simply one of the unique enigmas of his father that shrouded him in superstition.

But when the wrappings were undone, Boruto was honestly surprised at what he saw. The arm was nearly pure white – almost like the color of fresh milk.

Well, at least the parts of the arm that weren't riddled in strange markings and tattoos, that is.

Boruto hissed in pain, breaking his train of thought, as his father tied off the last of the bandages carefully and attempted to help him to his feet – well, foot; he would have to use his father as support for the other side of his body until he could be seen by a proper medic.

"For what it's worth… I'm sorry," Naruto said quietly. "I never intended to hurt you. I don't plan to ever have to do that again."

Boruto just blinked in confusion, before replying just as quietly. "What just happened?"

He paused for a moment, deep in thought, before continuing. He glanced up at the steeled face of his father, concern in his gaze. "You… your eyes… back in the cave…"

Naruto stopped moving entirely, turning to look at his son with a deadly serious look. "You mean you don't know?" Naruto said with an eyebrow raise, placing his normal hand on his son's shoulder comfortingly.

When Boruto shook his head apprehensively, Naruto only sighed and closed his eyes.

"I suppose I have some explaining to do. Come on, it's a long way home, and we need to figure out what's going on," he said with a small twitch of the lips.

Then, he turned back to the horizon, narrowing his eyes. "I have a sneaking suspicion that we're currently in the middle of a foothold situation."

He looked back down at his shellshocked son, squeezing his shoulder slightly in a sign of support.

"And as of right now, we can only trust each other."

* * *

"You know, sensei; you never were that good at gambling."

"Hmph. Yeah, yeah. At least I'm a million times better than Tsunade."

Minato gave a small smile at that. "Yes, I suppose you're right."

Kushina yawned sleepily, stretching her arms over her head as she sat on the couch in their living room next to her husband, feet tucked under herself comfortably. "I want some tea," she announced to no one in particular, before looking across the coffee table at the Toad Sage's white-haired figure planted squarely in the middle of a comfortable upholstered recliner, a few playing cards perched in his outstretched hand, the other on his chin in contemplation. "Want some?"

He looked up at the Uzumaki woman, and nodded in appreciation. "Yes please, if you wouldn't mind."

Minato smiled as his wife stood up again, wobbled on her sleepy legs, before stumbling to the kitchen, a hand planted over her mouth in an effort to stifle the loud yawn that was trying to break out.

When she disappeared in the kitchen, Jiraiya sighed and yawned himself, setting his cards face down on the neutral ground that was the coffee table. "So, when do you want to start?"

Minato didn't need to ask what it was he was talking about, because he himself had been asking the same question all night. "I don't know, honestly. They could be anywhere by now. There's no way that we could find them now, unless we employ every single ANBU in our ranks for the job."

"And there's no telling who exactly is behind all of this," Jiraiya hinted enigmatically.

But Minato knew all too well who the Sage was referring to. "For all our sakes, I certainly hope it's not him. I don't think Hiruzen-sama could handle putting both his student _and_ his best friend down within two weeks of me taking his job." The Fourth simply let out a dry chuckle, tossing his own cards back on the table. "He's supposed to be retired, not an assassin."

"Regardless," diverted Jiraiya, "We have to be open to any and all possibilities. Whatever is happening is most likely occurring in conjunction with the Chuunin Exams the next few weeks, and we just so happened to catch two of their less.. _particular_ agents before they could do any real damage." Jiraiya smirked. "Well, unless you call you falling on your ass real damage."

Minato smiled defeatedly. "Yeah, yeah. It wasn't as grandiose as you're making it out to be."

"Oh, I'm sure," the pervert winked, crossing his arms.

After a few moments of comfortable silence, where both shinobi rested their eyes and delved deep into their own thoughts, Kushina came waltzing back into the room with a platter, complete with steaming kettle, three small cups, and a tiny jar of milk and sugar. (3)

Then, suddenly, they all froze.

Minato's eyes launched open as far as they could go, whereas Jiraiya just narrowed his and leaned back up in his chair.

Kushina, however, collapsed to the floor, hot tea spilling across the floor and her clothes.

She didn't make a sound.

"Kushina?! KUSHINA!" Minato yelped, flipping to his feet with a quickness not seen since the war. He was beside her before she even completely folded over herself, clutching her stomach ferociously.

Slowly, the woman's eyes opened, her pupils completely dilated as they darted across the room, before finally settling on her own hands, gripping at the tea-soaked clothes wrapped around her midsection.

She gaped for a moment, simply staring in horror, before slowly shifting her gaze to look at her worried husband.

"It… it's gone," she stammered, before her eyes rolled back into her head, and she passed out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's chapter 3, all ready to go!
> 
> To those that may have noticed - yes, I switched around chapters 3 and 4 here on AO3. I think it works better this way personally.
> 
> But regardless! Thank you for reading, and I'll see you next week for Chapter 4!  
> -Endo
> 
> (Also, if you see any weird glitches with AO3, I apologize. Trying to figure them out, but I apparently am sucking hard at it. OH WELL)
> 
> Original upload date: 10 July 2016  
> Official beta for this chapter: N/A


	4. Chapter 4

Hinata Uzumaki set her pen down with a small sigh, shaking her head at the fleeting thoughts that flew through her mind as she sat at their dining room table, papers spread all across its surface like some sort of hastily-procured tablecloth.

She let out a small yawn, before pushing the chair back away from her, standing as she did so. It made no sense to sit and try and work when nothing was happening.

Sometimes, she wished she was a more creative person. If she told anyone that, they'd immediately launch into a massive diatribe defending the contrary, referencing her cooking skill, knitting ability, and general kindheartedness as sources. But Hinata couldn't shake the feeling that it was more like a court hearing anytime she told anyone her deeper insecurities, so she simply tended to keep quiet about it until pressured to do so.

Usually, it was Sakura that was doing the pressuring. After the end of the Fourth Shinobi War, the pink-haired kunoichi had taken a strong liking to Hinata for some reason – a reason that took Hinata years to finally figure out.

There was no ulterior motive, or master plan. The girl had simply wanted to be her friend, and genuinely cared about her.

Her and Naruto.

She smiled brightly at the thought, gathering the papers together in a large bunch in her hands and cramming the pen inside the small pocket on her light jacket. With a sweeping motion, she moved from the dining room of their house into the kitchen, setting the papers down on the countertop with a small _thump._ She glided across the room and began to rummage around in the pantry towards the far end of the kitchen for a light snack.

As she took out a jar of grape jelly and some wheat bread from within the pantry's confines, she heard the subtle _click_ of their front door unlocking, swinging open, then softly closing with a _thud_.

' _That's odd,'_ she thought with a frown. ' _Boruto should be taking the first test of the Chuunin Exams right now, Himawari should still be at school, and Naruto's at work; who in the world…?'_

Instantly, she became alert, quietly setting her food on the small dinette in the middle of the room, before activating her Byakugan silently.

It never hurt to be overly cautious – even if there was a contingent of ANBU hiding in the shadows around their front lawn. Her husband was the Hokage; she was always at risk of being a political bargaining chip.

But being a Hyuuga by birth, Hinata knew all about the risk that came along with living in a ninja village such as the Leaf. She had to admit that things had gotten exponentially better since the earlier days of her life, where she was constantly at risk of being kidnapped by rival villages or missing-nin. Luckily, after the events of the Fourth Great Ninja War, there were no more rival villages – and the world was at peace.

That didn't mean there still weren't missing-nin running about, however.

She blinked, focusing her eyesight through the walls of her home, until a figure appeared.

She let out a sigh of relief when she recognized the intruder's chakra signature.

A big smile graced her face as she rounded the corner, about to envelop her husband in a big hug, just like she always did.

Hinata had long ago promised to Naruto – and herself – that she would never let him come home to an empty house ever again. She had quite a few late nights, but she made do. It was worth it just to see the look on his face, every time, without fail.

Except…

Except for this time.

Instead of the huge goofy smile that he would normally sport, his face was masked in shadows and self-doubt. Across the middle was a small smile, obviously worn in a pitiful attempt to hide whatever problem he was dealing with. But she could easily tell by the sunken look in his eyes that this was no ordinary, _Ichiraku stopped serving extra-large bowls on Sundays_ problem.

She floundered a bit in the doorway between kitchen and living room.

Then, her motherly instincts kicked in. "Naruto? You're home early. What's wrong?"

Naruto's façade cracked as she watched, his eyes fogging up. He just stood there, barely a foot inside his own home, shoes off, hair disheveled and askew, as if he had been tousling with it in frustration. His clothes were as they always were – hastily thrown on in his morning rush out the door.

But, what startled her the most was that he was no longer wearing his white, flamed cloak. Instead, it was slung over his arm gingerly, and he was obviously trying to avoid thinking about it.

Hinata watched as his grip on the garment slowly slipped, before it tumbled down to the ground before him in a careless heap, completely disregarded.

In a split second, he was across the room and wrapping her in a huge hug, causing her to jump and blush at the forwardness of it all. Soon enough, she reciprocated the hug accordingly, wrapping her arms around his waist as he buried his face into her neck.

"Hinata," he started with a hoarse whisper, "I'm so sorry."

The woman blinked in surprise, then raised an eyebrow slightly. With a gentle tug, she pulled him away from her so that she could look him in the eye properly. "What on earth do you have to be sorry for?"

Naruto grimaced slightly and sighed, turning his attention away from his wife's silver eyes, opting instead to look at the ground behind her.

"I spoke to Boruto today," he said quietly, barely above a whisper.

Hinata immediately tensed. She knew the way her son felt about his father. No matter what she said or did to try and prove to the boy that his father was a good person, he always became indignant and conspiratorial, claiming that she was simply defending him blindly because of who he was, not who he should be.

He'd spent many of his nights in his room as punishment for those particular outbursts.

She sighed slightly, and pulled him back in for another hug. "What did he do this time," she said with a bit of pained humor in her voice, trying to ease the tenseness in her husband's body. Feeling him relax a little in her arms, she smiled a bit to herself, squeezing him just a bit tighter.

"Hinata…" Naruto whispered, hugging her back gently. His bottom lip quivered a bit, before he bit down on it in an attempt to ground himself.

"I… I don't think I can do this anymore."

Hinata blinked. "What are you-"

"I can't… I can't do this. Leave you and the kids alone all time. Put the village before you. Force you to raise our children alone." His voice began to waver towards the end, and it took him a few moments to speak his last few words, as if he was fighting an internal battle of wills.

Hinata pulled out of his embrace quickly, but gently. She grabbed him by the shoulders – which was a bit difficult, considering she was a decent bit shorter than he was – and forced him to look her in the eye.

"What are you saying, Naruto?" she said with a small frown.

He flinched again, before sighing and resigning himself to his fate.

"I… I'm thinking about stepping down, Hinata."

She took a step back from him, eying him curiously. Then, she gave a soft, kind smile. "Who are you and what have you done with my Naruto?" she said softly, shaking her head. "The _real_ Naruto would _never_ say something like that."

The Hokage sighed and ran his bandaged hand through his hair, taking a step forward and leaning to the side, resting his shoulder on the frame of the entryway to their kitchen. After fidgeting with his hair a bit, he put his hands into his pockets with a frown, looking down at the ground in apprehension.

"I… I'm serious, Hinata. If my job is affecting you as much as Boruto says it is-"

"Naruto."

He jumped at her interruption, and nervously raised his head to look Hinata in the eyes. He was honestly surprised when he saw the look of gentle firmness swirling around in their pupilless haze.

She walked towards him again, this time taking him by the arms, gently pulling his hands out of his pockets. With one fluid motion, she wrapped his fingers around her own, and pressed their hands together.

"Come with me."

Then, she tugged – and he had no other choice but to follow her in slight surprise as she led him back into their living room, then behind the sofa set towards the large sliding glass door that went out to their patio.

With a brief release in order to open the latch and slide the door open, Hinata kept her hands in her husband's – or, rather, her husband's hands in hers – as they stepped outside into the afternoon sun to look out onto the village before them.

Naruto smiled painfully at the sight, already seeing where this was going. "Hinata…"

"Naruto," she chided softly, turning him – and herself – to look out onto the beautiful summer day's that had wrapped itself around the Leaf like a warm wool blanket. The heat was refreshing, intoxicating, _invigorating_. The treetops nearest to their home flickered a bit in the slight breeze, slightly rustling Hinata's hair as she stood next to him, taking in the sights as well.

They may have lived in their home for many years at this point, but the view never ceased to amaze them.

A cloud shifted in the sky, shining sunshine down on the massive array of tall, glass-and-metal skyscrapers that speckled across the top of the Hokage Monument, reflecting light across the village and into Naruto's eyes.

Progress.

All he had to do was take a good, long look at the seven faces carved along the face of the massive rocky structure to see it for himself.

All along the paths that ran up and down the village linearly, people moved about their lives in silent contentment; they, at least, understood the peacefulness and ease of life that they were experiencing from the efforts of the shinobi forces that worked tirelessly to protect and serve the people of the Leaf.

A force that was headed by him.

"Do you see it now?" Hinata said finally, turning to look at her husband with a kind smile. They were still holding hands – Naruto's prosthetic right locked in her left. Her black-and-blue hair danced across her face in the breeze, which she effortlessly tamed by moving her free hand across it in one swift, repetitious movement. "This village… everything you see, everything you hear, all of it…" she squeezed his hand a little more to accentuate her next few words, "…is because of you, Naruto. We wouldn't _be_ here if it weren't for you."

This evoked a small smile on the corner of Naruto's lips, as he turned his head and gave a thankful smile in return.

"Now, I know how challenging being the leader of a Hidden Village must be. I have some idea; I live with one now," Hinata said with a small giggle, turning and resting her head on his arm, looking back out onto the village. She moved her other hand to wrap around his as well, pulling him closer. "It's understandable that you're away for most of the day. Or most of the week. It's a worthy price to pay for being the luckiest woman alive. Or being the children of the best father a boy – or girl – could ask for." She sighed contentedly, eyes flickering from building to building as she spoke, passively taking in the sights and sounds of their home.

Then, she shifted her head on his shoulder, looking up at him. Noticing her movements, Naruto turned as well, locking eyes with her, which made her smile.

"I understand if you feel like you're not here enough. But please, don't let Boruto push your buttons like that. He's just… been very stressed recently and needs to unwind. I think the Chuunin Exams have played part in that. He's a complicated boy – not unlike you when we were kids." She bumped her forehead against his arm playfully, making him smile back.

He sighed, and squeezed her hand, rubbing his thumb over her fingers gingerly. "I know. He's basically a carbon copy of me, y'know. And Himawari's you, down to the hair and everything." He grinned at that.

She giggled. "Yes. But she sometimes says or does some things that really makes me think that there's more of you in her than we think."

Naruto blanched, recalling the incident on the day of his inauguration. "Yeah, don't remind me…"

This made her laugh, as she leaned further into her husband's side. They sat like this for an untold length of time, during which Naruto physically unwound like a corkscrew, relaxing in the embrace of his wife.

Then, he felt Hinata move away from him, and he was being whisked away once again, back into the house.

"Where are we going now?" he said with a confused grin, not exactly sure what was going on.

No response as they reentered the kitchen.

She led him over to the counter on the far side of the room, closest to the pantry and various food items that were thrown about - universal evidence of children.

He raised a confused eyebrow at that, looking at his wife's figure as she slowly detached from him and moved fluidly across the kitchen to a neat stack of papers perched at the end of one of the large marble countertops.

Naruto grimaced at the sight. ' _Paperwork_ ,' he shuddered mentally, opting to instead look in the other direction in mock disinterest on the off chance that Hinata was trying to unload some of her shinobi forms onto him.

As he took note of a rather interesting pattern in the wallpaper, Naruto heard the sound of papers rustling as Hinata gathered them up in her arms. His blood ran cold at the thought.

Then, suddenly, she was holding his hand again.

He blinked, and turned to look at her apprehensively, with a slight tinge of worry on his brow. Seeing her husband so distraught over a simple stack of papers made her giggle a little to herself, before she carefully pressed the papers to her chest with her free hand, locking them in place. Then, she began to guide him back into the living room.

When Hinata took a seat on their couch gently, pulling Naruto along with her, he simply followed suit with a frown, still not entirely sure where this was going. It wasn't until the stack of paper was detached from her grasp that he noticed they were _not,_ in fact, paperwork.

Instead, what he saw was page after page of painstakingly handwritten notes. Hinata's very careful and fluid script flowed across the paper like a soft glow, looking more like art than handwriting. He supposed that in a way it _was_ art – calligraphy was indeed a beautiful and difficult craft.

He turned to look her in the eye to commend her on her skill, when Naruto noticed a slight blush on Hinata's face – something that she rarely did now that they had been married, by each other's side, for nearly two decades. He took it as a sign of contention, and gripped her hand slightly tighter, causing her to look up and meet his eyes as well.

"What's wrong?"

"Well…" she trailed off, mouth tilting up slightly in an embarrassed smile. She sorted through the first few pages of her pile, before setting the rest aside and handing one sheet in particular to her curious husband.

His eyes widened as he scanned through its contents.

"I had been wanting to do something like this for a while now," she said quietly, as he read, mouth becoming slightly ajar as he got further and further down the page.

"Hinata…" he said with awe clearly present in his voice, as he looked back and forth from the paper and his wife. "This… this must have taken you-"

"Months?" She giggled again, resting her hand on his knee. "You know I've had a lot more time on my hands now that Himawari's gone off to the Academy. I've been mostly by myself during the day the past few weeks. I figured I might as well try it out and see if I was any good at it. After all, there's only so many scarves I can knit before I get carpal tunnel." She gave a mock grimace as she shook her hand slightly in emphasis, before smiling and handing her husband the next paper in line when she noticed he was nearing the end of the first.

"But how…" he mumbled, still dumbfounded, flipping to the next page after completing the other.

"I went through some of Lord Jiraiya's old notes," she started, then flinched when she saw Naruto's eyes shoot up to her, paleness spreading across his face. She patted his knee with a smile, continuing. "No, not _those_ notes, silly. Just some of his general scribbles that he made while he was writing his novels. That's all."

"Hinata," Naruto said, finally setting the papers down gingerly on the coffee table beside then, taking the hand that was previously resting on his knee into his hands gently, looking her deep in the eyes. "This is incredible. All of this…" he gave a pointed nod towards the decently sized stack of papers sitting beside her, "…is incredible." He gave a sheepish grin. "You never cease to amaze me, y'know?"

She blushed a little more vigorously at the compliment, and the absolute sincerity that was behind it. "I just figured that future generations would want to hear your story. Our story. The story of the Leaf."

He smiled brightly at that.

"Although I will admit that there's a bit of us in there as well," she said embarrassedly, looking away slightly. "When we were younger, our first Chuunin Exams, that sort of thing." The blush on her face deepened a bit. "I figured I'd have the most experience in that, considering I stalked you for pretty much our entire childhood years."

She mumbled that last part, but Naruto still laughed and shook his head. He leaned in and planted a kiss on her lips, still smiling, as he squeezed her hand a little tighter. "Trust me, Hinata, if I wasn't such a bonehead, you wouldn't have had to have stalked me at all."

Hinata locked eyes with her husband, a playful gleam bubbling up from their silvery depths. "Bonehead? I haven't the slightest idea what you mean," she said barely above a whisper, a sly smile creeping across her face.

"He pulled her in to a quick hug, causing her to yelp and giggle in surprise. "Oh, now you're gonna get it!" he grinned, before he started tickling her all over.

As their laughter and yelling and mirth died down, Hinata sighed and began to gather up the scattered pieces of her biography. Naruto simply watched her in mild amusement, finally content in the fact that he knew he was making the right decision.

Then, he remembered something.

"Uhh… Hinata?" Naruto started with a weak smile. "I don't want to crush your spirits or anything, but…" He rubbed the back of his neck apprehensively, watching as his wife turned confusedly back around, arms still full, to look at him again.

Surprisingly, Hinata spoke first. "You mean the law?" She smiled and shook her head a little. "Don't worry about that. I don't plan on breaking your first Hokage Law, Naruto." She disappeared behind the entryway of the kitchen for a moment, leaving Naruto in slightly less nervous silence, before returning empty-handed and gently setting herself down in the seat directly next to him on the couch.

Then, she gave a strange, _knowing_ smile. Almost patronizing, if he didn't know Hinata any better. "Although…. I still have no idea to this day why you refuse to let people know that you're a jinchuuriki. Or to divulge exactly what happened during the Fourth War. Most ninja already know about it anyways."

Naruto sighed, and shrugged. "Yeah, I know. But…" he ran his prosthetic hand through his hair, letting the golden strips of metaphorical sunlight dance across his fingertips. "…well, think of it this way. Do you remember how the Third made a law, back when we were kids, that made it illegal for people to discuss Kurama or anything like that?" When Hinata gave a cursory nod, he continued. "Well, pretty much all the ninja knew at that point just _what_ I was. It was done primarily to try and give me a normal childhood, by not telling any of the kids – the kids of our generation – exactly what I am. Children aren't really all that understanding of stuff like that." He gave his wife one of his trademark gigawatt smiles. "So, I figured that once Hima and Boruto were born, I'd protect them from getting bullied and treated like crap because of who I am. It's definitely not fair to them."

Then, his gaze hardened, and he moved his hand from the top of his head to Hinata's knee. "That's not all of it, though, y'know." He turned away from her and gave another – smaller - grin, lost in thought, seemingly. "I don't want people to treat me any differently because of who I am or what I did during the war... I want people to see me for who _I_ am, not for what I've done in the past. To get their own impressions of me." He turned back to look at Hinata, eyes twinkling with mirth. "I guess I never really liked those types of people, y'know?"

Hinata just smiled, putting her hand on her husband's. "But Boruto and Himawari are old enough now to understand that you're not a demon." She shifted her eyes down to Naruto's navel, and gave a polite bow. "My apologies if I offended you, Kurama."

This made the Hokage laugh. "Ha! Well, he's not any saint, that's for sure!"

Then, his laugh turned to a grimace, as if he was under verbal assault from his nine-tailed compatriot, and he pouted. "Well, _fine_ , be that way, jerk."

Hinata couldn't help but giggle in response to her husband's antics. "Be nice, Kurama," she chided gently, poking Naruto in the stomach, before tucking herself in the nook underneath his arm, which he used to pull her closer into an awkward backwards hug.

But they didn't care if it was awkward. They had each other.

And a big demon fox.

But that was beside the point.

"Naruto," Hinata suddenly asked gently, not moving at all under her husband's arm. The blond blinked, and looked down at the top of his wife's head, who was currently looking off into space from her comfortable position underneath his arm.

"Yeah?"

"Can you promise me something?"

Naruto gave a confused frown, raised an eyebrow, and shrugged. "Uh, I mean, sure. You know me and promises."

He felt Hinata smile from the crook of his arm.

"Promise me that you won't give up your dream."

Naruto's eyes widened. "Hinata…"

"I'm serious, Naruto. You've wanted to be Hokage since before I even spoke more than a sentence to you. It's been your life's ambition, your life's work – and you've finally accomplished it."

She felt him tense up around her, his arm squeezing her ever so closer, as if he was afraid she was going to jump away and leave him alone on that couch.

"Hinata."

This time, he was much firmer, yet gentler.

The blond sighed, and shifted himself on the couch to give his wife ample room to turn on her bottom to look him head-on. When she did so, he put his hands on her shoulders, and gave her one of the most loving, tender smiles she had ever seen him wear.

"Hinata… you're right. I've wanted to be Hokage since I could walk, basically. But…" he sighed again, tilting his head down a bit, so his eyes were doused in the shadow of his tired, fatigued face.

"…but dreams change."

Now it was Hinata's turn to be surprised. "Naruto?"

"Do you…" he paused for a second, a small smile blossoming across his face. "Do you know _why_ I always wanted to be the Hokage?"

Hinata frowned slightly in thought. She knew the answer, but figured it'd be best if she let her husband talk. It seemed he was thinking along the same lines, mostly.

"I wanted to be the Hokage, since day one, because I wanted to be accepted. To love. To be loved." His eyes shifted up to hers, full of fire.

"Hinata, do you remember the day when Nagato attacked the village?"

Her eyes widened at the sudden change of topic, but she nodded nonetheless.

"Do you remember the way everyone treated me when Kakashi carried me back into the village on his back?" He gave an embarrassed grin, and took a hand off of one of his wife's shoulders to rub the back of his neck in trepidation. "Actually, I think you were still unconscious, or in the hospital, or som-"

"Sakura told me, yes," Hinata smiled gently, shifting herself on the couch once again and leaning up against her husband, rubbing the hand that still rested on her shoulder.

"Hinata, _that_ was the day I became Hokage."

That came as a surprise to the bluenette. She wasn't exactly sure where he was going with this, but it was certainly a very Naruto conclusion to draw from something - looking underneath the underneath.

"That day, I was acknowledged. I wasn't treated like some sort of freak in my own village. People actually _smiled_ at me when they passed me on the street. It was… it was…"

He gave a single chuckle.

"It was weird."

Hinata laughed a little at that. "I'm sure it was. But you deserved it."

His hand went up to his neck again. "Yeah, well, anyways…" He took a deep breath, as if to signal the change in atmosphere again.

"Hinata, that day was the day I achieved my dream. I got what I wanted. Sure, getting the actual hat and the big chair and assistant and all that paperwork-" he shuddered involuntarily, "-and whatnot was great, but it was just justification of what I had already accomplished. And then…"

He paused for a moment, leaving their sunlit living room blanketed in a comfortable silence before Naruto spoke once more.

"And then, your sister was kidnapped by Toneri."

Hinata was taken aback, no doubt; she tensed up slightly as he spoke. Then, she let out a single, soft chuckle.

"That reminds me, I wonder how he's doing? We should invite him over for tea sometime."

This made Naruto laugh, and he pulled his wife in for a big hug. "Haha, yeah, we should. I'll send him a letter or something. Hell, maybe I'll invite him to the Chuunin Exams."

"Oh, that would be lovely!"

"But anyways…"

"Right, sorry; please continue. Then Hanabi was kidnapped…?"

Naruto smiled and nodded, remembering where he left off. "Right, then Hanabi was kidnapped. And that's when I realized that I had a new dream. A new lifelong ambition. One that I kinda combined with my old one, y'know."

Hinata raised an eyebrow in confusion, and turned to look her husband face-to-face.

His blue eyes were practically _drenched_ in admiration; an almost _grateful_ sheen coated them like fresh paint. He was looking at her with so much gratitude, so much happiness, so much satisfaction…

… _Love._

She felt her cheeks begin to warm up under his scrutiny, and that made him smile, before he pulled her in for another brutally strong hug.

"Hinata," he mumbled through her hair. It smelled like lavender and honey - like always, he noted.

"Hinata, _you're_ that dream. You, and Boruto, and Himawari. The three of you are my whole world."

She began to feel her eyes tear up, whatever moisture they summoned to the surface of her lids being quickly absorbed by the soft, warm glow of the shirt her face was pressed against.

"Naruto…"

"I mean it," he reiterated, separating himself from her with a gentle tug, before wiping the tears that were running down her face with his sleeve affectionately.

"I know you do," she said softly, giving him a soft smile. She just couldn't bring herself to look him in the eye again, because then she'd start crying for sure.

He grinned back at her, before leaning forward and planting a soft kiss on her forehead. "You bet your ass I do," he laughed.

She leaned forward and bopped him on the chest with her forehead playfully. "Pottymouth."

"Hey, it's not my fault it's true!" he complained, barely restraining his laughter.

They sat there for a few minutes, just enjoying each other's company. Then, after calming down and relaxing a bit, Naruto sighed again and rubbed Hinata on the back.

"So… so now do you see my predicament?"

She blinked. "What do you mean?"

He frowned a little, turning his gaze away from her own. "I mean… whether I should pick the hat, or my wife and kids."

"Naruto."

Naruto's eyes shifted back over to Hinata's.

"Who says you can't have both?"

He blinked. "Uhh, well it's just that I've been trying the past few months and nothing I do seems to be working."

Hinata shook her head with a smile. "I know, silly. But you're the Hokage. _Delegate_. Put Shikamaru to work for once."

Naruto's eyes widened. "What are you talking about! He works more than I do, most of the time!"

The Hyuuga woman just raised an eyebrow. "Have you ever actually gone into his office when he's 'working'?" She raised her hands up in mock quotes to accentuate the last word.

Naruto frowned. "Well, no… I'm always busy working myself."

Hinata brought a hand to her mouth to try and cover her laughter. "Well, I suggest you don't do it from after lunch to around 6:00pm. He gets grumpy if you wake him up from his afternoon nap."

"AFTERNOON NAP?!" Naruto bellowed, standing up suddenly in rage.

Rather than move out of her enraged husband's way, Hinata just laughed more.

"Grr…"

"Naruto, calm down. He still does lots of work for the village, you know that. But you have to remember that he's also Shikamaru. He will _always_ be Shikamaru."

"But that asshole basically forbid me from using shadow clones to finish my paperwork! Says it has something to do with 'integrity in the eyes of the Daimyo and his advising staff'," Naruto complained, mocking his assistant's lazy drawl, plopping back down onto the couch in an angry heap next to his thoroughly amused wife.

At that, Hinata raised an eyebrow. "He's not letting you use shadow clones? But that's one of your biggest strengths. I bet if you had them do all the work, you could be home by lunchtime every day."

The man's eyes lit up. "You mean it? I could be done _that early?"_

Hinata only smiled. "Well, it certainly makes sense, doesn't it?"

That only made Naruto's eyes flash in brutish determination. "You know what? I'm the damn Hokage! I can do my job however the hell I want to!" He raised a fist to the air in victory. "Come tomorrow, I'm gonna do things _my way_ , and I'm gonna make Shikamaru file it all away until the sun comes up next week!"

' _Then, I can finally start to make up these last few years with you, Boruto.'_

* * *

"See? What'd I tell you! Easy as pie!"

"Yeah, yeah," Mitsuki stated with an eyeroll. "Don't get ahead of yourself so easily."

"Oh, puh-lease," Boruto scoffed, waving his hand in a conceited manner. "If the next test is anything like the last one, we'll be done by dinner time. I'm gonna have to find a spot in my closet for my chuunin vest…"

Sarada rolled her eyes as her teammate's voice tapered off in thought, knowing all too well that when he said 'spot in my closet', he actually meant 'spot on the floor in my room'.

She had to admit that the first test of the Chuunin Exams was relatively simple, compared to what she'd heard about in the past. But still, it was reasonably difficult, for one reason over most.

She still couldn't shake that nagging feeling in the back of her head that was urging her to do something to help her blond-haired teammate.

With a resigned sigh, she simply fell in line behind Boruto, while Mitsuki brought up the rear with a lazy gait.

The loudmouthed Uzumaki was putting on an air of contentment and ease as he walked, arms wrapped lackadaisically behind his neck, a bored expression mounted on his features like a simple henge.

To Sarada, it was nothing more than that. She had been around the boy for long enough to see through his own personal barriers – and it was painfully obvious that he was in sincere emotional pain.

A small sigh of relief escaped her lips. At least, through that, she knew that there was a chance that whatever relationship problems that Boruto was having with the Seventh – his _father –_ weren't irreparable.

There was a chance.

Channeling her inner Haruno, Sarada vowed that she'd do whatever the hell she could to try and bring the two hardheaded blonds back together.

As she was about to open her mouth, Boruto beat her to it. "Alright guys, let's get this second test over with! I wanna sleep in my own bed tonight!"

With a sweatdrop, Sarada rolled her eyes at the rather… vivacious volume Boruto used for his proclamation. The slew of other genin candidates that were following them in a haste to the training grounds on the outskirts of town all narrowed their eyes at the Uzumaki's bombastic attitude, and Sarada knew – just _knew_ – that they'd be paying for his words sooner rather than later.

"Would you can it!" she hollered, whacking him in the back of the head with the back of her hand. He flew forward in a grunt of surprise and angst, faceplanting rather comedically in the dirt with an "OOF!"

Sarada heard snickering from all around her, and gave a bit of a mischievous grin. Now that she had put her teammate back in his place, she had solidified their standing amongst the other genin present. They all knew now, whether they were aware of it or not, that Sarada had things under control, and that she could keep Boruto in check if need be.

Essentially, it was just a simple power ploy – one that was misfortunate for the blondie. No one ever said that Sarada couldn't channel her inner Uchiha as well. Hell, it was in her name.

Brushing aside the simple political maneuver, and the grumbles of pain and anger that she heard bubbling up from the confines of her teammate, she took the lead, charging forward towards the legendary "Forest of Death".

She rolled her eyes. Anything named that threateningly, especially by someone as… _jolly_ as that dango-eating jounin, could only be construed as pompous.

For some reason, a rather poignant memory from one of the rare interactions with her father came to mind.

_"Hey, dad! Can you train me today?"_

_"Hn."_

_"Aww, come on! Please!"_

_"Hn."_

_"Daaaaad!"_

_Sasuke Uchiha rolled his visible eye, the other shrouded by the long, dark strands of his jet-black hair, as he sat on the couch in their living room, reading a small scroll quietly. "Fine… I suppose I don't have to be off for a few hours anyways."_

_A pink-haired face materialized in the doorway to the kitchen, a rather pointed glare painted across it like an advertisement on a billboard. "What do you mean, 'don't have to be off for a few hours'? What happened to 'I have to leave as soon as dinner is ready'?"_

_Any ninja worth their weight in salt could have seen the way Sasuke's eye widened like a bursting dam._

_Sarada, however, was not quite among their ranks yet._

_"I'm going to go train with Sarada," the Uchiha stated suddenly, turning away from his fuming wife._

Sarada blinked in realization, not understanding what her father had done at the time. ' _Wait a minute, was he avoiding her?'_

She couldn't help but let out a small giggle at the thought. He, Sasuke Uchiha, was afraid of her mother.

_"So, where are we gonna go?"_

_She was running alongside her tall, lanky father's form as they strolled through the streets of the Leaf, slowly making their way towards the outer part of city._

_He didn't answer for a few moments, seemingly lost in thought, and Sarada was about to open her mouth to ask the question again when his husky voice broke out over the dwindling sounds of the bustling city behind them, and nearly blended in perfectly with the slowly growing hum of the forest._

_"We're going to an old training ground of mine."_

_Sarada blinked in confusion, before shrugging and following after her father blithely. She was honestly just happy that she was getting to spend time with her dad._

_When they were completely enveloped by the thick underbrush of the wilderness that wrapped around the Leaf like an ethereal goddess, the treeline began to recede, granting visage to a massive chain-link fence that stretched in either direction for what seemed like miles._

_"Where are we?" she muttered to herself._

"The Forest of Death! Training Ground 44. Get in line by teams, maggots!"

Sarada blinked. They had already arrived? How long had she been out of it?

Suddenly, the entirety of her view was obstructed by a massive blond wall, speckled in the middle by two large, disgruntled, electric-blue eyes.

"OI! SARADA!" Boruto bellowed, snapping his fingers in front of her patronizingly. "SNAP OUT OF I-"

_WHAM!_

"Would you kindly SHUT THE HELL UP?!"

The blond nursed his throbbing temple with a pout, sprawled out on the floor yet again. "Aww, c'mon, the second test hasn't even started yet and I'm injured."

"What have I told you about getting in my personal space?" she grumbled with an eyeroll, taking her glasses off to clean them with the hem of her dress.

A few moisture-sodden breaths later, the glasses were wiped clean and placed back upon the bridge of her nose.

"I was just trying to make sure you were okay, y'know…" Boruto muttered back, lip raised in boyish indignation. "Whatever. Can we just get started now?"

"I was about to say the exact same thing!" came the booming voice of the no-named jounin that was running the second tests. "Now, as you all know, there is the very real possibility of death or significant bodily injury…"

* * *

"…eryone understand? Good! Then line up over here, and grab your liability waiver and a scroll!"

Boruto jumped, having obviously drifted off in a dazed stupor after the boring jounin woman began to drawl on and on about rules and regulations and safety and the like.

He already _knew_ all of this. That's why he was going to be taking part in the Exams in the first place.

With a grumble and a sigh of resignation, Boruto followed his teammates to the small folding table set up next to the rather imposing gateway in the chain-link fence that surrounded Training Ground 44.

Sure, he'd heard about the place many times – whether it be in random historical documents that he found himself reading out of mind-numbing boredom whilst still enrolled in the academy, or after hearing other shinobi talking about it fondly, in some sort of demented reverence.

He rolled his eyes and crossed his arms. Whatever. As long as he could get in and get out, and get back to his normal life, he could literally not care less.

A training ground was a training ground… right?

"Are you ready to go?" he heard Sarada inquire from beside him, obviously conversing with their third teammate. After hearing him grunt in affirmation, Boruto squinted in anticipation for the violent, patronizing verbal assault from his female comrade that was sure to follow.

"Boruto."

He raised an eyebrow in shock, eyelid fluttering open in trepidation. "Huh?"

Sarada was standing next to him, a concerned glint in her eyes.

It kinda creeped him out.

"Boruto…" she started again, sighing and turning away a bit. "I don't know what's going on with you at home, but…"

"Look," he stated emotionlessly, "Just stay out of it, okay? My dad's a douche, but that doesn't mean you should have to drag yourself into it to try and get him to listen. Kami knows I've already tried that."

Sarada sighed, obviously expecting the lack of endorsement for her moral support. "Boruto, I just don't want you to grow up hating your dad. He's not that ba-"

"Not that bad?!" Boruto suddenly yelled, attracting the confused and curious attention of several other genin that were also standing around, waiting for the test to properly start.

He narrowed his eyes and glowered at Sarada. "Look, Sarada, you don't know a damn thing about that asshole. Hell, he's never around enough for me to know anymore either. Just… mind your own business."

"I agree with Sarada."

Both Boruto and the Uchiha blinked in surprise at the sudden statement brought forward by their less-than-chatty third teammate.

"What do you mean, you _agree_ with her?" Boruto said exasperatedly, shaking his head with an eyeroll. "What's there to agree with!"

"I agree with the fact that you need to quit being an asshole yourself and actually thinking about what things must be like for Lord Seventh as well," Mitsuki easily retorted with a sly smile. "Sarada." He turned to the kunoichi. "You saw the look on Lord Seventh's face too, right? The one he had on when princess over here decided to storm off?" He jutted a thumb over his shoulder, pointing to the now-fuming blond.

"PRINCESS?! I'LL SHOW YOU PRINCESS!" Boruto bellowed, charging for his teammate recklessly.

With a sigh, Mitsuki suddenly wrapped his hands around the boy's wrists, holding him in place, even though he was still a solid six feet away. "That doesn't even make sense," he replied dryly, turning to face his captive, arms contorting and bending inhumanly as he did so.

Sarada grimaced. She never did like it when she saw her teammate use his Kekkei Genkai – regardless of the implications or benefits it could hold in battle. With the shake of her head, she cleared her thoughts, and summoned the mental capacity to answer Mitsuki's question.

"Yeah, I did." She turned to face Boruto as well. "He was heartbroken, Boruto. You crushed him."

Boruto seemed to stop his annoyed struggling underneath the deathgrip Mitsuki had him in for just a moment, locking eyes with Sarada.

Then, he snarled. "Y'know what?! Good! I don't care! I'm glad he's sad! That asshole deserves it! He's finally getting what's coming to him!"

Sarada was about to open her mouth to retort when the bellowing voice of the Jounin-in-charge echoed across the clearing. "Alright everyone! The test will begin in twenty! Everyone get in your positions!"

Mitsuki reluctantly released his hold on the angry blond and meandered his way over toward their gate – the entrance to the Forest of Death, and, by association, the next portion of the Chuunin Exams.

The Uchiha shot the Uzumaki a glare that practically screamed, ' _this isn't over yet',_ and pulled a well-kept kunai from the pouch on her leg in preparation.

With a huff, Boruto lined up with his colleagues, also now brandishing a kunai of his own. "Fine, whatever, let's just get this over with," he grumbled, as the horn blew and the gates blew down in one synchronized sweep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! It's much appreciated. See you next chapter!  
> -Endo
> 
> Uploaded on: 17 July 2016  
> Official beta for this chapter: N/A


	5. Chapter 5

When life's a silent stretch of night  
In fading shades of grey -  
I take a world of black and white,  
And turn it into day.

_Sam Garland_

* * *

There wasn't much that set an entire ninja village on high alert, all at once.

There was the occasional chakra disturbance from miles away that would tickle at the back of the minds of most active-duty shinobi from time to time, sure, but even those events were few and far between. The Village Hidden in the Leaves existed in a sort of peaceful indifference to the goings-on of the faraway world – and it liked to keep things that way.

It was no wonder, then, that when a chakra beacon three times brighter than the sun began to blossom on the horizon and slammed into the consciousness of every chakra-capable individual in the city with the ferocity of a bludgeoning tool, all hell broke loose.

Up and down the streets, villagers dropped their bags and gaped, pointing shaky fingers to the beam of pure-red power that blitzed into the receding daylight – dancing with the twilight mist like an omnipotent god. The children simply blinked and stared, the adults began to quiver in fear… and the shinobi began to sweat in anxiety.

And their Hokage was nowhere to be found.

Screaming began to echo throughout the more populated districts of the Leaf as a shockwave of pure energy washed over them like a storm front, blasting cups and dishes off of tabletops, knocking shutters about like ragdolls, sending dust and debris into the air in a haze of confusion and fear. Mothers shielded their children as the dust cloud swept across the village like a sickness, coating everything in a layer of soot.

Then came the tremors. China and glassware, pots and pans could be heard rattling amongst one another from the kitchen of nearly every home in the village, and the buildings creaked and groaned under the stress. People rushed about frantically, as if to flee from some sort of assailant; and the younger civilians began to cry in fear and worry, chasing after their family members as they all collectively stumbled towards the safehouses nestled in the mountainside, as protocol dictated.

Atop the Jounin Headquarters, several shinobi began to amass in blurs of speed and wind and leaves. First to arrive was the ANBU, then the special jounin, then anyone else that wasn't currently occupied with herding the general civilian populace into the emergency shelters.

One eye in particular looked upon the panicked village with a form of stoic apprehension, his teeth mashing together in worry underneath a simple navy-blue mask. He watched as one family began to scramble towards the Hokage Monument, currently bathed in the sickening blood-red of the manifested power over the horizon to the northeast.

Kakashi's lone eye narrowed as he studied the scarlet-soaked mug of his sensei, whose own stone eyes seemed to gleam in untold wisdom and strength, reflected back to the village he oversaw.

He clenched his fists together by his sides, nearly reaching for his ANBU mask as he fumed in silent consternation, preparing to lunge into battle with… whatever _that_ was on the horizon.

' _Where the hell are you, Minato-sensei?'_

The energy beam pulsed again slightly on the skyline, and the copy-ninja grimaced and braced himself for its eventual effect on the village, which was set to arrive at any moment…

Another ripple of condensed air currents rocketed across the Hidden Leaf, sending dust skywards once more and forcing most of the shinobi on the roof to secure themselves with chakra, lest they topple over in the quaking.

A few gasps and grunts of displeasure echoed behind him as a large, rather tall building in the center of town began to shudder and groan. Kakashi eyed it passively as he recovered himself, the structure collapsing downwards onto itself in a mighty roar of wooden beams connecting with concrete underpinnings. A dust cloud reached out into the night sky like a child grasping for its mother, as the last remnants of the structure vanished into a pile of rubble.

"What the hell is doing all of this?!" someone called from behind him, and a murmur of questioning agreement began to float across the ranks of the shinobi forces that were gathered in wait for their leader.

Then, someone voiced the question that they were all asking. "Where's the Hokage?"

"Minato must be attending to the matter personally," came a rather familiar, soft, soothing voice from the rear, and the gathered assembly shifted on their feet to turn and face the source of the voice in its entirety. There, standing in his full battle gear, Adamantine Staff in hand, was the venerable Third Hokage, his eyes burrowing holes in the beam of light that was flashing vehemently on the horizon.

Without shifting his gaze in the slightest, Hiruzen simply frowned in contemplation. "Judging from location on the horizon, as well as the time delay between the fluctuations in the beam and its subsequent effects on the village, I would say that it is currently originating from approximately one-hundred miles away north, northeast of here." He reached into a pocket and pulled out his unlit pipe, settling it between his teeth in a form of thoughtful meditation, narrowing his eyes in deliberation. "And there's only one place that I know of that's about one-hundred miles northeast of the village."

"The Valley of the End. That's what I was thinking too."

The village's forces let out a collective sigh of relief when they recognized the long, flowing white hair of the legendary toad Sannin, as he materialized in a whisper of the wind.

Hiruzen just gave a small smile, shifting his gaze to his student with a slow blink of his eyes. "Jiraiya. I take it Minato is with you, then?"

"I'm _right_ here."

A vibrant golden flash of light danced across the surface of the Jounin Headquarters, revealing the white-cloaked form of the Fourth Hokage, crouched low on the rooftop - two special kunai in hand, his clothes dancing in an unseen wind.

Jiraiya crossed his arms with a frown, and turned to look at his pupil with a glimmer of worry behind his eyes. There was a pregnant pause before his curiosity got the better of him, and he couldn't help but ask the question that had been egging at the back of his mind since the trio had departed the Fourth's home, Kushina limp in her husband's arms.

"How is she, Minato?"

The Fourth slowly stood from his position on the rooftop, his hostile and protective aura dwarfing the rest of the ninja like the sun overshadows a match. Turning a bit, he connected his cold, calculating blue eyes with his sensei's. A sad, human expression was hidden in there, visible exclusively to someone like Jiraiya, tucked behind the oppressive shinobi that the world knew only as the Yellow Flash.

"She's… in bad shape. Stable, for now at least, but in bad shape."

Hiruzen raised an eyebrow, before he began to mentally connect the dots. He nodded in acceptance, taking a step forward so he could ask a question without the others hearing.

"Where is she now?" he whispered hoarsely, putting his hands behind his back, his staff perched between them amicably.

Minato frowned, his eyes narrowing ever so slightly as he began to passively scrutinize his surroundings, observing the light damage that the city had underwent during his absence. Judging by the way he began to grip his kunai, he didn't like what he saw.

"I took her to the hospital – one of the lower wards," he said quietly, readjusting his fingers across the cork surface of his tri kunai's handles in anxiety.

Jiraiya nodded, frowning slightly at the obvious concern his student was trying to mask for the sake of the village. It was valiant, that much was obvious, but bottling one's emotions – especially in regards to a loved one – was a very ill-advised course of action. Especially in their line of work. "Look, Minato, we can take care of this. You can go back to Kushin-"

"No."

Jiraiya blinked at the harshness in Minato's words, as the man simply cracked his neck in preparation for what was to come, standing tall once again. "Kushina wouldn't allow that. She would want me to do everything in my power to defend this village while I still can. Sitting in there fretting over something I have no control over would do no good for the village, or for my wife."

The Toad Sage nodded in reluctant agreement, before crossing his arms in front of himself again and standing directly to the left of the Fourth Hokage. The Third took up his place to Minato's right, and the rest of the forces fell in line accordingly.

"Alright," Jiraiya finally said, after they sat in silence, observing the flickering crimson light that illuminated the city like a second, blood-red sun. "What's the plan, Minato?"

The man stood shock-still, only his blond hair – now orange in the strange lighting – flickering across his face dramatically in the rough breeze that whipped over the rooftops.

Then, he narrowed his blue eyes even further, a deep frown nesting itself on his face.

"There are no coincidences in our line of work, sensei," he muttered suddenly, grinding his teeth together in thought.

Jiraiya blinked, recalling their conversation from earlier.

Then, it hit him.

"Right, so you think it's _their_ doing," he surmised with a small nod.

Minato murmured in agreement. "Yeah. I'll bet anything that those two have something to do with this."

"What exactly are you two going on about?" Hiruzen casually asked with the raise of an eyebrow. "Care to fill me in, Minato?"

The Fourth Hokage narrowed his eyes and turned his attention back to the horizon, his face hardened and primed.

"They're after the Nine-Tails."

Jiraiya actually stumbled a bit, eyebrows cresting his hairline in absolute shock. "Minato…"

"It makes sense," he stated emotionlessly, twirling one of his kunai with his finger – misconstrued as an exhibition of power to some, but a well-known nervous tick to the eyes of the Sannin. "They came here to stage an extraction of the Kyuubi, and exploited my curiosity of seals – especially those of my own creation – in order to buy enough time to sneak into my home and do… _something_ to Kushina." The words flew out like speeding kunai, threatening to stab any of those who were in the way, his killing intent spiking astronomically. The gathered shinobi that hadn't already given the three legendary men a wide berth took another few steps back, watching in silent apprehension.

Jiraiya was flabbergasted. Sure, that hypothesis had been filed away somewhere in the deep recesses of his own mind, but he labeled it as preposterous and moved on to the next theory. "Minato, you can't possibly think that they're after the Nine-Tails-"

"Sensei," Minato interrupted fiercely, a hint of desperation in his voice, "I checked the seal. It's…"

He began to spin the kunai faster, clenching the other with his free hand so tightly that fingernail indentations began to carve away at the porous texture of the handle.

"It's empty."

Hiruzen blinked in shock, eyes going wide in worry. "Minato, surely you don't mean…"

"Yes, I do," he said quietly, still facing outwards. "I checked it myself. The seal is completely intact, but…" He sighed in contemplation, before continuing. "But it's as if the beast was never there. There's not an ounce of it inside of her whatsoever."

The old Sarutobi narrowed his eyes, clenching at his pipe with his molars. "And what is to become of Kushina, now that she is without her… burden?"

Silence was his answer, which greatly unnerved the two men.

On the horizon, the beam of red chakra began to flicker and shrink, wobbling slightly as it ascended into the heavens, piercing the tumultuous clouds with the precision of a scalpel. All three men refocused their attention to the construct – as did every other ninja on the rooftop.

"So…" Jiraiya began to sputter, a seemingly permanent scowl etched across his face, "…does that mean that whatever is generating that beam-"

"-Is the Nine-Tails?" Hiruzen completed, tensing slightly at the revelation.

Minato murmured in affirmation. "I strongly believe so, yes. My best guess is that the beast is proving too much to handle, and it's fighting back."

"Well good for it, then!" Jiraiya shrugged sarcastically, and crossed his arms. "And where do you think it's going to come once it's done picking its teeth clean with their bones?"

As if on cue, the bolt of light was snuffed out of existence at, ostensibly, the snap of a finger, leaving the blackened sky untouched once again, granting visual passage to the nightly amalgamation of twinkling starlight.

The sudden recession of the red light caused the entire village to seemingly flinch at once as it was thrown back into blinding darkness.

Everything was eerily quiet for several long, anxiety-riddled heartbeats. Only the whistle of the wind across the forest could be heard.

Then, Minato snarled.

"Jiraiya! Take the ANBU and begin to secure the northeastern wall!" He turned with a fierce look in his eye to the right, and gave a pointed glance at a scarred Jounin standing amicably amidst a sea of shellshocked faces. "Shikaku! You and the other Jounin come up with a defensive strategy in the event of a large-scale attack from a Tailed Beast! Minimize casualties! Take any sensor-type ninja you can find and keep watch over the Northern forests for any signs of activity!"

Minato turned and looked Kakashi straight in the eye, shocking the silver-haired jounin with his seriousness. "Kakashi, I need you to round up all the chuunin, as well as the Uchiha police, and assist in the evacuation!"

The teen nodded with a hard expression on his face, before he clasped the ANBU mask in his hand and slid it over his face.

Minato tossed his kunai in the air, and immediately began to bolt through a series of fairly recognizable hand seals. The special knives completed their arc in the air, and began to curve back down to the ground as Minato bit his thumb and slammed his hands on the rooftop below him.

"Summoning Jutsu!"

Three plumes of smoke masked Minato's acrobatic recovery of his ninja tools, spinning a bit in place as he did so in a fluid, almost beautiful motion.

As the white screen dispersed, three messenger toads looked around at their surroundings in surprise, before turning their attention to the Fourth and bowing slightly.

"Minato-sama," they echoed simultaneously.

The Hokage shrugged off the honorific and got straight to business, mildly noting the surprised faces of the shinobi standing around him. "I need one of you each to go with a team of ninja! Alert me immediately of any updates to their situations!" He pointed at Jiraiya and Kakashi and Shikaku in quick succession, then immediately turned to the Third as ninja and toad alike began to jump into gear and fly off in all directions.

"Lord Third," Minato turned to the aged man with narrowed eyes, "I'd like for you to come with me."

Hiruzen narrowed his own eyes in return and merrily nodded, sheathing his staff on his back and walking up to Minato sagely, bandana strands flickering in the heightened wind.

They vanished in a yellow flash.

* * *

"Dad?"

"…"

"Uhh, dad?"

"…"

"DAD!"

"KAMI, WHAT?!"

Boruto rolled his eyes and scoffed, scowling at his father, who had turned around with the intent to throttle him. "What the hell are you doing?! You haven't said a word since we left that huge-ass crater you made!"

Boruto made a face, and raised an eyebrow at his father, pointing an accusing finger at him with his free hand – the other being wrapped around the shoulder of one of his father's… _esteemed_ Shadow Clones as they slowly meandered their way back to the Leaf.

"Hey, yeah, that's right! You said you were gonna explain this shit to me! What the hell's going on?!"

"Watch your mouth!" Naruto frowned, turning back to the long and winding dirt pathway with a frown. "Your mom's gonna kill me when she hears you talking like that, y'know!"

Boruto would have crossed his arms in a huff, if one wasn't currently wrapped around the shoulder of his father as he hobbled along, leg still broken. "Yeah, _that'll_ be what Mom kills you for."

The Hokage turned and grimaced at the sight of his son's gimp leg. "We'll just say that it was a… uh…" Naruto raised an eyebrow in contemplation, as he ran through his repertoire of acceptable excuses. A good five seconds passed, before...

"Aha!" he exclaimed finally with the snap of his fingers, a brilliant smile lighting up his still quite sunken face. "We'll just say it was a training accident. I took you out as punishment for trying to use the Rasengan during the finals and worked you a bit… well, too hard." He wrapped his pale white right hand around his neck in sheepishness, letting out a few apprehensive chuckles.

Then, he visibly deflated. "Aww, who am I kidding. That still pins me as the bad guy."

"Yeah, _pins_ you…"

"Huh?"

"Nothing."

Naruto rolled his eyes and turned back to the front, eying the shadows in the pitch-black night. "Yeah, yeah. Look, we need to stay alert." He peeled his eyes and looked out on the horizon again. "I don't exactly know what's going on, but something isn't right, that's for sure."

"Oh really?!" Boruto scoffed. "What was your first clue?"

He narrowly avoided the clone's free hand swinging up off of his back into the nape of his neck, which earned the Naruto doppelganger a rather endearing scowl.

"Don't be a smartass," Naruto mumbled, running a tired hand through his hair in exasperation. "Kami, are you always this bad? Or am I just now realizing it?"

"Probably the second one, you two-timing piece of crap!"

Naruto hit the brakes – hard.

He turned on his feet with a fire in his eyes that Boruto had honestly never seen before, and yelped when he was lifted up by his collar to the same eyelevel as his father.

Time stood still.

"Don't you ever _,_ " Naruto bit out through clenched teeth, staring down his son with a ferocity that sent shivers down the boy's spine, " _ever_ accuse me of being unfaithful to your mother." He narrowed his eyes and leaned in slightly closer. "Do I make myself clear?"

Boruto gulped and nodded frantically, eyes wider than dinner plates. He was set back on the ground gently, and his father just sighed and shook his head.

The Uzumaki heir let out a breath he wasn't aware he was holding, and looked at the ground in sudden trepidation. "Th-that's not what I meant, but whatever."

Naruto raised an eyebrow as he turned on his heel and began walking again, the boy and his clone assistant following behind closely. "What did you mean, then?"

"Forget it," he mumbled, suddenly less inclined to speak.

The Hokage gave a cursory glance over his shoulder as he walked forward, but shrugged and didn't press the matter.

They walked in silence for another few minutes, during which Boruto just passively listened to the symphonic sounds of the forest's night life all around him, moonlight casting their shadows down the path before them.

Then, suddenly, his father began to talk again, this time much softer than before.

"Hey, I'm sorry."

Boruto started, honestly surprised that his father had apologized. "Huh?"

Running a tired hand through the blond mess atop his head, Naruto sighed and slumped forward a bit in obvious fatigue. "I'm kind of a dick when I'm exhausted… it doesn't happen often, so I'm not used to it. So I'm sorry for snapping at you like that."

The boy opened his mouth as if to say something, before releasing a small breath and letting it go. There was no sense in agitating his father more than he already had.

Besides, Kami only knew who – or what – his father _really_ was.

And it was honestly terrifying him, just walking behind the man, now that he had gotten a slight taste of the legendary Seventh Hokage's abilities.

Boruto's eyes glazed over slightly in thought, as a lifetime of memories began to flicker past his line of site.

_He remembered birthday parties when he was younger…._

_Chasing his father around the backyard, barefoot, while his mother chided the two of them to put shoes on…._

_Falling asleep in his arms after a long, long day…._

Boruto frowned again, his inner turmoil beginning to surface slightly.

 _That_ was the same man? The one who just decimated an entire forest?

The one who just screamed in his face at the slightest hint of agitation?

The one who had practically turned into some sort of… _demon beast_ after they left his office?

He jammed his eyes shut, trying hard not to think about it. The day had been too damn long, and he suddenly felt the weight of the world come crashing down on his shoulders, sapping at his energy like a sponge.

He was _exhausted_. At least he knew that much.

' _Maybe…'_ he mumbled to himself inside his mind, head beginning to droop as the day's events began to wear on his system, _'…Maybe I can just take a quick…'_

"Hey, Boruto," the clone suddenly smiled softly, prodding him in the side with a gentle poke. "Don't fall asleep on me, now. You're starting to drag on the ground."

Sure enough, he turned a sleepy eye on where they had just been, and frowned at the deep trenches that his shinobi sandals were carving into the gravel path.

Boruto stumbled a bit, regaining his footing, and wincing whenever a few loose rocks embedded themselves in the soles of his good foot. With a clumsy dance, he made an effort to jiggle them out through the holes in the front of his shoes, as the clone attempted – mostly in vain – to keep him upright and off of his bad leg.

Eventually, however, he stumbled forwards, and began to flail his arms around in a last-ditched effort to right himself, before…

"Ooof!"

*Poof!*

Naruto blinked and turned around with a confused look on his face, only to see his son's face practically embedded in the ground, his rear end pointing to the sky as his limbs flayed in all directions in consternation. A small plume of smoke was the only remnant of the Shadow Clone.

"What the hell! Ow! Ow, ow, ow!" Boruto hissed as his father pulled him back to his feet, wincing as he forgot about the state of his leg and tried to put weight on it.

Naruto just gave him a small smile in return, his own dwindling energy very evident. "Hehe, sorry about that. Although I did warn you that my Shadow Clones are really weak right now. Something's still up with my chakra."

Boruto just pouted at him. "That's what you said when you made him. Still, that's pretty ridiculous. I barely touched him and he popped."

Naruto scratched his neck in thought. "Yeah, I know. Weird, right?"

Boruto just grumbled in affirmation, opting to simply lean against his father as they continued to walk. The soft sounds of three legs crunching on the gravel path bounced off of the shadow-cast forest around them, the quiet breathing of Naruto's slightly… _singed_ form operating like clockwork beside him.

It was… strangely calming, despite the circumstances.

Boruto felt his eyelids begin to droop yet again, and this time he couldn't fight it off. His head began to sag and lull, until it slumped completely into the side of his father's chest.

He was out like a light.

Naruto stopped walking quietly with a small smile, and looked down at his son and shook his head in amusement.

With a ginger touch, he bent over and picked the sleeping boy up off of his feet and raised him to his own chest, bridal-style. With a slight readjustment and a series of pained grunts from Naruto, the boy's face dipped down and to the side, the cool metal of his forehead protector resting comfortably in the crook of his father's neck.

"You're getting a bit too big for this, kiddo," he whispered quietly with a tiny smile, and took a few deep breaths to steady himself, Boruto's weight almost uncomfortably egging at his upper body muscles. It was true – Naruto couldn't believe how much his son had grown in the past few years. A small tinge of guilt began to silently eat away at the back of his mind, but he pushed it aside for the moment, instead opting to look down at his son. The boy's mouth opened a little, a small trail of drool running down his whiskered face. He fidgeted a little in his father's arms, mumbled something about kunai and began to snore lightly.

It was a ridiculous sight, really.

Naruto rolled his eyes in mock exasperation, and began to walk again, this time at a much more quickened pace.

He steeled his gaze as his stride accelerated, until they were screaming through the forest at a break-neck pace. Despite his fatigue, he had to keep going.

The village was in trouble. Naruto could feel it. He had to get back and figure out what the hell was going on, and fast.

* * *

White.

Never ending white.

A sea of quartz, a horizon of snow, a sky of silver.

Miles and miles, for as far as the eye could see: nothing but _white_.

And it was driving Kushina Uzumaki _crazy._

It was like she was floating – drifting through a realm stuck somewhere between life and death, reality and insanity.

There was no escape.

A melancholy purgatory.

' _Lucky me,'_ she grumbled to herself, crossing her arms in a pout and twirling a little in place, trying to find something – _anything_ worthy of note.

Nothing but emptiness met her eye.

The redhead scoffed. All she wanted was some tea, damn it! Why did she have to go and try to _swim in it?_

Was that why she was here? Some sort of sick joke? Was tea some sort of forbidden vice that she wasn't aware of? Sure, sometimes she'd slip a little sake in to spike it when Minato wasn't looking, but…

She shook her head in frustration, eyes clenched shut to try and block out her overwhelmingly bright surroundings. Unfortunately for her, the whiteness permeated even her ironclad eyelids.

"AUGH!" She screamed at the top of her lungs, tugging at her hair, this way and that, to and fro, over and under. Even though the strange world she was locked in seemed vast and almighty, her voice carried hardly any distance at all, much to her surprise. "What the hell's going on, y'know?!"

Uncomfortable silence was her answer.

With a pout, she plopped herself down on the white floor, opting to look at her green dress – at least _that_ wasn't blindingly blank, too.

With a sad yawn, she smacked her lips together a few times amicably and laid down flat, resting her head in the palms of her hands, legs crossed over one another in a comfortable twist.

Still, she was bored. What the hell did people do for fun when _they_ were trapped in an infinitely-expansive white void? It _had_ to be a common occurrence, if she was this calm about it.

The woman blinked. Now that she thought about it, she wasn't nervous or fearful of her surroundings _at all._ Agitated, sure; but not scared.

No. It was almost like she had been here before; the place definitely seemed rather familiar.

As a part of last-ditch effort to break free of the strange white world, Kushina scrunched her eyes shut in a form of deep concentration, her nose ruffled up on her face as she clenched every muscle in her body…

…and then released them all, panting slightly at the exertion.

"Damn," she said to herself with a scowl, "That usually does it."

Wait, _usually?_

What the hell was she talking about? She'd never been here before… wherever _here_ happened to be.

' _This place is messing with my mind,'_ she thought with a creeped-out chuckle, quickly jumping back up to a sitting position.

Then, she felt a strange… _tingly_ feeling on the back of her neck, causing her to lurch completely upright and sit as still as a statue, eyes wide. With a nervous twitch in her movements, Kushina began to swivel her neck to the side, ever so slowly, until…

"AHA!" She screeched, jumping to her feet and pointing an accusing finger at the… wait, what?

She was still alone.

Kushina sweatdropped. "Now I'm _feeling_ shit, too," she groaned, flopping back down and banging her forehead on the ground.

Then… she _did_ feel something. She was sure of it.

And whatever _it_ was, it was now (rather embarrassingly, she might add; thank goodness no one else was around to laugh at her) adhered to her forehead, right where she had been slamming it into the floor in exasperation.

"What the hell…?" she mumbled tiredly, reaching up with her hand to grab at the strange presence on her face.

Then, she blinked.

It was orange fur – a small sliver of it, as if a stray kunai had trimmed it off of someone… or some _thing_.

' _That's weird,'_ she thought, raising an eyebrow. ' _The only thing I know of with hair like this is…'_

* * *

"The Nine-Tails? Are you _absolutely_ certain of this, Minato?"

A murmur of affirmation was the preoccupied Hokage's response, as Hiruzen Sarutobi stood tensely in the hallway outside of Minato's study, the sounds of rustling papers and hastily-tossed-aside books bouncing off the walls like an estranged toddler. There was a loud bang, and Minato cursed under his breath, the sound of more knocking and crashing rattling the Hiruzen's nerves.

Finally, he had had enough. "Minato, I'm coming in there-"

The Third opened the door and gaped at what he saw.

Mountains of books, scrolls, papers, the works – all scribbled on hastily. The walls: covered from floor to ceiling in jutsu formula, one particular poster spanning most of the far wall of the very, _very_ cluttered study. Somewhere towards the rear window was a large desk: not that Hiruzen could actually see it. The entire room looked like a tornado had swept through it – things were strewn about in every direction; papers were dangling between books on the shelves lining the two side walls of the study, a stack of books were blocking the door somewhat, and there were even a few unraveled scrolls hanging off of the light fixtures.

And Minato was in the middle of it all, adding to the chaos as he went around the room, grabbing books off his shelves, scrutinizing them, mumbling something incoherently, then tossing it over his shoulder in a blitzkrieg of panic.

"…Minato?"

The Hokage paused only momentarily to look at his predecessor, before shaking his head rapidly to ease his frazzled nerves and digging back into the pile of his focus.

"Seriously?!" he muttered to himself in agitation, flinging a few more books and scrolls aside. "Where the hell did-"

Then, he froze. "AHA!" Minato jumped, a good-sized smile on his face as he began to carefully bundle up several large scrolls and pieces of parchment under his arms, turning towards the door with a quickened pace.

"Minato, what on earth are you doing?" Hiruzen said with a strange expression on his face, eyebrow raised slightly. "We don't have time-"

"We have got to get to Kushina," the Fourth suddenly blurted, shifting quickly on his feet to grab his previously disregarded cloak from the top of his desk – Hiruzen hadn't even noticed it – and began marching back towards the older man. "I have a feeling that she might be able-"

Minato reached the Third and carefully grabbed his shoulder, still talking. Before Hiruzen could mentally prepare himself, the two vanished in a bright yellow burst of light…

…only to reappear the next instant across town.

"-to help me determine what's going on if I give her the key to her seal. Maybe that can help us figure out what's wrong with her, as well as to…"

Minato trailed off as he watched the shaky form of the Third Hokage try to – elegantly - regain his footing amidst the center of the hospital room they were now standing in, artificial light bathing the two in fluorescence. To the right of Minato was a table, already nearly completely smothered in the scrolls and diagrams that he had slung under his arm only moments prior. The table was propped up hastily against the side of a rather plain hospital bed…

…upon which the Red-Hot Habanero laid, clammy and pale, locked in unconsciousness. The crisp, baby-blue hospital sheets she was wrapped in were completely straight and not wrinkled in the least: the only real sign that Kushina hadn't, in fact, moved an inch since being delivered here less than ten minutes ago – something nearly unthinkable for an Uzumaki.

Minato nervously ran a hand behind his neck as he watched the legendary Professor try not to lose his lunch. "Oh, hehe, sorry. I thought you were ready that time."

Hiruzen just gave a feeble smile and rubbed his forehead, still not entirely used to the sensation of using the Flying Thunder God to get around.

' _And Minato does this dozens, sometimes hundreds of times a day…_ '

He blanched a little at the thought.

"Yes, that was a bit… unexpected, I will admit," he smiled, and approached the woman in the bed. His expression steeled immediately. "Minato… I'm sorry."

The blond man just sighed quietly beside him, shifting through his notes in a rather obvious attempt to distract himself. "We need to get started," was all he said, walking up to his wife and placing a gentle hand over hers. Then, he turned slightly, looking Hiruzen in the eye. "Sarutobi-sama, you're one of the few people I'd ask this of, but…" Minato sighed again, looking out the window of the hospital, watching as dark shadows danced across the moonlit night. "Would you be willing to stand guard over my wife? Make sure she's comfortable?" He turned his attention back to the peacefully sleeping jinchuuriki before him. "And… and let me know when she wakes up, okay?"

Hiruzen blinked. "You mean to say you don't have a means of waking her? But I was under the assumption-"

"Kushina is an expert sealing master. At least, she thinks she is." Minato rolled his eyes, his mouth twitching up in the corners ever so slightly. "Regardless, she'll know what these are for when she wakes up." He leaned back over the table again, and began to fumble with one scroll in particular.

With a _click_ from the clasp on the scroll's casing, Minato nonchalantly held it out in Hiruzen's general direction, already looking through the pile for something else. "This is the key to Kushina's seal. Give it to her when she wakes up. She'll know what to do with it."

Hiruzen just took the item gingerly, looking it over with his intellectual eye. He set it aside carefully, beside the sleeping woman before them.

Minato continued rummaging, until he found the rolled-up cylinder of paper he was looking for, quickly cramming it inside the confines of his green flak jacket.

He narrowed his eyes, turning to his predecessor with a frown. "I was hoping to not have to use _this_ particular jutsu, but if the situation calls for it, I'll do what I have to for the village," he said curtly, talking to himself more than anyone else at this point.

Hiruzen started. "Minato… surely you don't mean to use THAT seal-"

"If it comes down to it, I may have no other choice," he stated quietly.

"But you just started to learn that technique a few weeks ago! We started at the same time, and I still have many months to go myself! Do you know what could happen if you tried to summon the Death God without the proper contract?"

"It's a risk I'm willing to take!" Minato suddenly hissed, his blue eyes ablaze in something akin to rage.

Hiruzen blinked at what he saw. He knew that deep down, the man was fighting an internal battle the likes of which had never been seen, but he had done a spectacular job of hiding it… up until now.

Realizing his outburst, Minato shrank back a bit in self-disappointment, running a feeble hand through his hair. "I… I'm sorry. But you of all people should know what it means to hold this position."

Hiruzen sighed, and gave a slight smile, turning to grab a chair from the far side of the small room. "Yes, I do. And that is why I believe it should be me that goes on whatever suicide mission you're planning, Minato. My prime has come and gone." He frowned at the blond man. "You've been the leader of this village for less than a month. It simply isn't fair to the Leaf, or any of its citizens, if they lost their newest Hokage after ten days."

Minato sighed again, closing his eyes in deep concentration. "I understand. But as long as the Leaf stands, I have an obligation to its people. Passing it off to my predecessor would just be cowardly." He turned again to look out the window, his eyes scanning the now-empty village, as the dark blotches of his shinobi ran across the rooftops, orders having been given out. The darkened silhouettes of four faces, one freshly carved into the mountainside, loomed over the rooftops like the presence of a god – although now, in this state of emergency, they were a brazen sign of the pure arrogance of mankind, thinking it could tame beasts that were gods in everything but name.

"Speaking of which," he muttered to the glass pane, looking at his own face reflected off the glass, his breath fogging up a good portion of it as he spoke. "How did our little… _extermination_ event go?"

Hiruzen frowned behind him, that much was quite evident from the reflection of the hospital room Minato was able to see. "We…" he began, chewing on his words delicately, "We almost had him. But right when we were about to pull the trigger, _this_ started happening."

Minato froze completely in shock. "Wait, are you saying Orochimaru escaped in this chaos?" He turned on his heel and stared at the old man behind him, still slightly despondent from failing to accomplish his goal, and to put a stop to his student's heretical wrongdoings. "Hiruzen, this is bad. Catastrophic, even."

The Third calmly reached into his clothing and procured his weathered old pipe, settling it between his teeth once again in self-contemplation. "Yes, I am aware," he stated with a small sigh, chewing a little on the wooden material. "The implications behind this are quite dire."

"This means…" Minato mumbled, beginning to pace the room slightly in deliberation, "This means that there's a chance Orochimaru is behind all of this. He was the one that kidnapped the Nine-Tails, he was the one that caused that…" he narrowed his eyes in confusion, "… _thing_ off in the distance. He's… He's…"

"A monster," Hiruzen grumbled, anger beginning to bubble up behind his eyes. "Rest assured, Minato; if I must make it my last act on this earth, then so help me Kami. I will put an end to his malevolence personally."

Minato softened slightly at that, turning to look at his unconscious wife in the bed beside them. "Thank you, Sarutobi-sama," he said softly, running a hand across Kushina's face. "And I'm sure she'll thank you too, once she wakes up."

" _If_ she wakes up," came the dejected voice of someone in the doorway to the room, wearing a white lab coat and brandishing a thick wooden clipboard, loaded with several inches of unruly paperwork.

Minato raised an eyebrow and frowned at the doctor, stepping away from the incapacitated redhead for a moment to allow the physician to quickly jet in and check her vitals. "I thought you told me she would be fine."

The doctor sighed in exasperation, dipping his head slightly as he ran a flashlight across Kushina's pupils to check for any signs of consciousness. "No, I didn't say that. I said that she was _stable_." He leaned up and away from the woman, scribbling a little on a few sheets of his unkempt ledgers. He tapped the pen on the underside of the clipboard in anxiety, frowning at whatever he had just written, before the prying glares of _both_ Hokages finally unnerved him enough to start talking again.

"Look, that was ten minutes ago. I gave you my best guess before you had to go running off, so please forgive me if my initial diagnosis was…" he gulped as a cool rage began to build up behind harsh blue eyes, "… _generous._ "

Turning to look down at his patient, the doctor sighed shakily, realizing he'd just pissed off the one man capable of legally dismembering him. With a determined scowl, he began to methodically explain the situation. "Honestly, we don't know what we're dealing with here. She should be awake – _should be –_ but it's like her chakra flow has collapsed in on itself in order to preserve her mind. Considering her… _condition,_ I can't make any promises. If she pulls through, she pulls through."

"I see," Minato replied calmly, his expressionless face and narrowed eyes locked onto the man like homing missiles. "Please, doctor, do not hesitate to keep me informed of my wife's wellbeing at your _earliest_ convenience."

The Hokage turned to Hiruzen with a small frown as the panicked doctor fled the premises, his white labcoat tattering behind him as he did so. "Please… keep her safe," he muttered dolefully, eyes calculating and worried.

Sarutobi only nodded once. "Of course. I'll see to it that when she wakes up-" His eyes flashed with honest-to-goodness determination, "- _when_ she wakes up, because she will – you are informed immediately."

Minato felt as though a two-ton brick had been lifted off of his shoulders, as he gave a tired sigh. "Thanks," was all he said, before walking back towards the pile of sealing patterns and research scattered across the table. "The rest of this is for Kushina. When she wakes up," he repeated with an eye-smile. "I'm going to go join Jiraiya on the walls, to watch for anything tonight."

The monkey bowed his head slightly in respect. "Good hunting, Minato-sama."

"Thank you, Hiruzen-sama."

And then he was gone.

* * *

*Crack!*

"Shit!"

Naruto stumbled a bit in the air, trying to regain his balance after nearly blasting the limb off of a tree in the darkness. His son twitched a little in his arms at the outburst, but Boruto was, indeed, Naruto's son; he simply lolled his head to the other side and started to snore again.

Slowing down slightly to pace himself, the man let out a small sigh. He was losing his grip on things, his exhaustion getting the better of him. His chakra control was already almost as bad as it had been when he'd barely been a fresh genin, and it was embarrassing, if he was honest with himself.

He turned his attention to his son once again, shaking his head with a tinge of worry.

He had genuinely _no idea_ what was going on – why his son was with him, why someone was walking around henged as his late father…

…and why, _why the hell_ all nine of the most conceited beings in all of existence were crammed in his gut.

" **I heard that,"** Kurama mumbled within his mind, although Naruto had a sneaking suspicion that even his trigger-happy Tailed Beast companion was at his wit's end.

' _Do you have any idea what's happening?'_ Naruto asked mentally, still jumping from tree limb to tree limb in the faded darkness. ' _I mean… there's a lot of weird shit going on. The last time this happened…'_

" **No, we're not in some strange genjutsu,"** Kurama sighed in annoyance, predicting the words before they fell out of Naruto's mind. **"I would have sensed that, at least. This… this is different, that much is certain."**

' _What exactly is 'this' anyways?'_ he deadpanned, staring straight off towards the horizon dazedly. ' _I mean, it could just be an elaborate prank… Maybe Konohamaru-'_

" **Do you really think that brat would be able to pull off cramming ALL of my siblings in here?"** the Tailed Beast said with what Naruto could only assume was an eyeroll. " **Please. That monkey child has no more skill than that idiot child of yours."**

' _Oi!'_ Naruto chided with a frown. ' _He's not stupid, y'know! Maybe a bit headstrong, but not stupid.'_

 **"Hmm, I seem to remember another blond that exhibited _both_ of those character traits…" ** Kurama trailed off in amusement, his foxy smirk manifesting itself in Naruto's mind.

The blond man just rolled his eyes. ' _Yeah, yeah. Laugh it up, asshole. That headstrong idiot just so happened to become the Seventh Hokage.'_

" **And who do you think was responsible for that, you brat?"**

' _Oh, I don't know, maybe… ME?!'_

**"I feel sorry for your village. Really, I do. Maybe I should have put it out of its misery when I had the chance."**

' _Seriously? Don't even joke about that.'_

" **Relax, you whelp. I'm just making conversation. It beats everything those other fools are blabbering on about. Do you know how many times I've had to convince them not to just burst out of you like some sort of meaty balloon?"**

Naruto gulped a little, his eyes widening. ' _Uhh, in that case, don't you think you should continue to stop them from doing that? I kinda want to live a little longer…'_

Kurama sighed exasperatedly, and fell quiet. After a few minutes of silence, Naruto assumed that the Nine-Tails had gone back off to do whatever it was he did when he was bored – probably sleep, if he remembered correctly – when the booming baritone voice of his companion echoed around his mind once again.

**"Naruto… actually, there's something else I should tell you first."**

Naruto said nothing, prompting the beast to continue of his own accord.

**"It would appear that part of the problem with your chakra… _over-encumbrance_ was caused by more than just the arrival of my fellow Tailed Beasts."**

_'What are you talking about?'_ Naruto frowned confusedly, slowing down further, until he was simply hopping across the trees with the speed and haste of a child. ' _I'm already confused enough as it is, what-'_

"Hmm," hummed a small voice from his arms, and a pair of electric blue eyes graced the world with their presence once again.

Naruto looked down with a small smile as his son stretched a bit, grumbling as his arms were obstructed by something large… and clothed… and… warm?

Boruto's eyes shot completely open. "Wh... what the hell?" he mumbled, frantically looking around to try and figure out what the hell was happening. One moment, he'd been dreaming about beating up a bear, and the next…

The boy blinked. Wait, was he _moving?_ That didn't make any sense…

Then, his brain finally kicked into a higher gear, and he focused his foggy vision on the strange blond blob that was hovering over him, the blackened treetops dazzling behind it in the night sky.

"Hey," his father simply said with a tiny smile, continuing to look ahead as he ran through the treetops. "Sleep well?"

What followed was a struggle of epic proportions.

"LET GO OF ME! WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING?! I'M NOT A DAMNED BABY!"

Naruto gracelessly plopped his agitated son on the ground. He stretched his aching limbs to and fro, using his spine as a pivot. "Tell that to the drool stain on my shirt," he grinned cheekily, pointing to his orange jacket, slightly in tatters from the previous day's events. A large, blotchy wet mark christened the space between the nape of his neck and his heart.

Rubbing his backside and grumbling profanities, Boruto stood up once again, leaning his bad side against the tree trunk, glowering at his father. "Yeah. Whatever. I would have slept on a landmine if I had to. Yesterday was awful." Then, he rubbed his eyes passively, smacking his lips in an effort to banish the sleepiness from his body once and for all. "Where the hell are we?" He muttered, turning around slightly on limb, looking out over the never-ending depths of the dark forest all around them. A low rustling roared over the treetops as the winds whipped leaves across one another, the waning moonlight peeking through the gaps. "And what time is it?"

He reached into his kunai case with a practiced precision, whipping out a small black rectangle. Artificial light bathed the small swath of forest around the duo. "Seriously? Five in the morning? How long have you been running for, dad?"

"Pretty much all night," the man said with a bashful shrug. "We'll be back in the village a little after sunrise."

"You carried me _all the way back_ to the Leaf?"

Naruto blinked. "Uhh, yeah? What else was I supposed to do? Leave you here?" His smile evaporated, and he narrowed his eyes. "Did you already forget what I told you last night?"

Boruto rolled his eyes. "What, that 'we can only trust each other' bullshit?"

"Can you _please_ at least _try_ not to swear so much?" his father nearly whined, shaking his head in exasperation.

"Why should I? You do it all the time."

"But _I'm_ the adult."

"Since when?"

"BORUTO!"

"Okay, okay, sorry." The boy turned away from his father, a scowl upon his lips, hands crossed over one another, right shoulder leaned against the tree-trunk amicably. "How much further to the village?"

Naruto just sighed in agitation. ' _Why did he have to be me as a teenager? An angsty, Sasuke-like me?'_

An amused snort rattled around his brain. " **It's quite entertaining watching you try to tame your spawn like this. He can be quite… articulate."**

' _I'm doing the best I can! I don't exactly have a point of reference here!_ '

**"You know… I kind of like the brat."**

Naruto grumbled internally. ' _Of course you do.'_

"-ad? Hey, dad? DAD?"

The Hokage blinked a few times to clear his mind of the fox's musings, before turning to face his son with another eyeroll. "WHAT? For the love of Kami, couldn't you see I was thinking?"

Boruto just gave him a look. "Yeah, you're always doing that – zoning out and stuff!"

"Thanks for saying 'stuff' instead of… well, y'know."

"Whatever…" the boy grumbled again. Then, he turned back to look up at his father, a questioning frown on his face. "...So…"

Naruto blinked. "Uhh, so what?"

"So, how much longer till we get back home?"

"Oh, right," the Hokage nodded in remembrance. "Well, we have about fifteen minutes until sunrise, so until then, let's try to cover as much ground as possible."

He began to move to make a Shadow Clone, but Boruto shook his head. "Nah, I got this. Don't want your clone popping when I _breathe_ too hard."

Moments later, a pair of equally injured Uzumaki boys were bounding through the forest after their father, holding on to one another, sharing unwounded legs.

Naruto shook his head in defeat, as he looked out onto the swiftly brightening horizon with an anxious glint in his eyes.

**"You know, you're going to have to tell him eventually. Especially after what he saw."**

_'What do you think I've been thinking about the last few hours?'_

Kurama paused for a moment in thought. **"When the time comes… do you want me to speak to him?"**

The Hokage looked down at the swiftly moving forest floor in deep thought. ' _Actually… that may not be such a bad idea. We'll see, though. We still have to figure out what the hell is going on here.'_ He frowned again. ' _Didn't you have something you were going to say to me?'_

Silence was his answer, as the trio burst out into a small clearing amidst the trees, stopping for a moment in the grassy undergrowth.

"Are you alright? Do you need anything? How's the leg feeling?"

"Fine. No. Fine."

"Yeesh, I'm just trying to help."

"Hn."

Naruto sighed for what felt like the thousandth time that day, and the sun hadn't even risen completely yet. "Look. I understand if you hate me, I really do." He stopped for a moment when he saw a flash of… _something_ – was that guilt? – flitted across his face. But a moment later, it was replaced with the stoic disinterest that Naruto was familiar with. "But that doesn't change the fact that we have to work together. Something could be seriously wrong with the village. 'Could be' being the key words." He stood firm in front of his son, arms crossed across his orange clad chest like a titan. "I want to make sure that if the situation calls for it, you're willing to do what must be done."

Boruto was honestly taken aback. He had never seen his dad this serious before – well, not before yesterday. And may now and then whenever he'd crack a snarky joke during mission assignments. Or whenever he'd deface the Hokage Monument. Or whenever he'd-

"Boruto? Are you listening to me?"

Blinking, the boy nodded. "Yeah. I understand."

Satisfied with the answer, Naruto simply nodded and turned back towards the horizon, watching as the sun began to slowly crest over the treetops in a harmonious symphony of clockwork and life.

"It's a new day," he muttered quietly to himself in reminiscence.

* * *

"It's the next day already?" Jiraiya said in agitation, raising an eyebrow, surveying the slowly yellowing skyline with a casual eye. He turned slightly from his position atop the wall, locking eyes with his very twitchy pupil. "Minato? What should we do?"

The blond haired man smiled ever so slightly, eyes mirroring his obvious exhaustion. "You know, I don't think I'll ever get used to you coming to _me_ for instructions." He turned and looked out at the rising sun peeking across the sky like a child awakening from its slumber. He coughed into his fist once to clear his throat, then turned to the side, where one of Shikaku's sensor-nin was sitting on the floor, legs crossed. "Any updates?"

"No, sir," the thin man announced, shaking his head apologetically. "No signs of any activity for two miles."

"Hmm," Minato shook his head, crossing his arms and walking back over to the Toad Sage. "This is starting to get frustrating."

Jiraiya just raised an eyebrow, still looking out over the rolling trees. "Well, think of it this way; would you rather have a bunch of action? A bunch of death?"

The man frowned to himself slightly, before pulling a pen and paper out of his kimono and frantically scribbling away inside. "A bunch of death? What am I, an Academy student?"

"No, I suppose not," Minato sighed in dejected agreement. "Still… all this tension… it's starting to frazzle my nerves." He ran a shaky hand down his coat, smoothing the ceramic-white fabric flat in what could only be described as an attempt to keep busy.

"I don't think that thing can get any smoother," Jiraiya quipped casually. He still hadn't moved. "Besides, I know why you're doing this."

"Is it that painfully obvious?"

"Minato, she's your wife. I'd be worried if it wasn't."

The Fourth just stood still for a few moments, letting the wind whip through his hair as it ran over the treetops, up the village wall.

"Go see her. You know you want to."

He blinked. "But sensei, I can't. I have to be here in case something happens-"

Jiraiya finally – _finally_ – turned around to look his student in the eye. "You're the _fastest shinobi alive_ , brat. If something happens, you of all people should be able to get here just in time for the action to start."

Minato sighed. "I suppose you're right. But are you sure-"

"Just go already. I'll send a toad the moment trouble arrives. That is, _if_ trouble even _does_ arrive."

The Hokage reached into his thigh pouch, and procured a set of tri-pronged kunai from within. He gracefully tossed one towards Jiraiya, who caught it with a light 'whap!', and then proceeded to fan the others out in a large ring throughout the wooded clearing below.

"Alright," he said finally, after leaning over and adhering one of his seals to the surface of the village walls. "I'll be right back."

"Say hi to sensei for me," Jiraiya said nonchalantly, as he turned back to the wall with a small smirk.

A yellow flash was Minato's response.

…

"Wait! I've got something! CONTACT! 2 clicks to the north!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for being so late! I'm going to upload the next few chapters daily to try and catch up. Again, sorry!
> 
> Thank you for reading, as always, and for being awesome. Could you humor this fledgling writer with a review/comment? Much obliged. ;)
> 
> Much love as always.  
> -Endo


	6. Chapter 6

A tremor shook the tallest trees,  
And trembled through the ground -  
A rolling rhythm rode the breeze  
On weighted waves of sound.

 _They stepped along in wretched woe;_  
_A haunted, human tide -_  
_They shuffled, staggered, swaying slow,_  
_Or falling still beside._

They pushed and paced and ran and raced.  
They darted, dragged and dropped.  
They twist and turned and caught and chased,  
And then...

The music stopped.

_Sam Garland_

* * *

_Naruto paced the whitewashed halls of the Leaf Hospital in very visible worry, his hair pointing in every conceivable direction as he tugged at it._

_The sun had long since gone down, and the seat that had been procured for him by one of the nurses on staff remained untouched in the corner, shrouded in the shadows that stretched down the dark hallway._

_Heavy winds whipped at the exterior of the facility, eerily echoing across the building like the howling of some unmentionable beast. The summer months had begun to recede into the cold and dark expanse of wintertime, bringing with it massive storm fronts and windy days._

_But Naruto's mind was very much occupied on something else – something that his impatient, inherently_ male _brain couldn't seem to parse properly._

_"You're going to wear a hole in the floor if you keep pacing like that."_

_Naruto jumped, his wide blue eyes turning towards the source of the intrusion, before he relaxed and slumped against the nearby wall. "Oh. Sakura. Jeez, you scared the crap out of me."_

_The pink-haired medic-nin only smiled and shook her head endearingly at him, walking to the lightswitch towards the end of the hall and giving it a swift flick. "Honestly. Sitting here in the dark like this. What, were you trying to set the mood for the worst scenario possible?"_

_The blond sighed meekly, running a hand – yet again – through his hair. "Heh, yeah, I guess you could say that. I'm just nervous, y'know? I mean… you guys've been in there for hours now. I can't do anything but sit and worry-"_

_"Sit?" Sakura nearly snorted, giving a pointed glance at the chair that seemed to be gathering dust in the corner. "I don't think you've sat down for a solid twenty-four hours, Naruto." She took him by the shoulder and led him over to it, forcing him to take a seat for the first time in what even Naruto would admit felt like ages. "Look, childbirth is a fairly common procedure. The odds of something going wrong are astronomically slim."_

_He looked up at her imploringly, his blue eyes lit up in what could only be described as childlike worry. "But what if-"_

_"Relax."_

_He blinked, and gave a small, sheepish smile. "Okay. Are you sure? Is there anything I can do? I can run down to the store and grab some-"_

_"Naruto," Sakura pleaded, taking both of his shoulders in an endearing form of authority. "Look. Hinata is a strong woman. She'll be fine." She gave a small laugh. "Hell, she's had to put up with_ you _for the past four years. I think if she can handle that, she can handle a kid."_

_When the look on the man's face twisted back and forth from worry to understanding and back to worry again, she bent over and looked him right in the eye. "Listen to me. The first one is always the hardest. Neither of you know what to do, or what's going on, and it's understandable. Really! It is. Heck, when Sarada was born a few weeks back, when we were all on that mission out of the village, I was terrified. Thank Kami for Karin. I don't know what I would've done were it not for her."_

_She scratched her cheek in thought, pausing for a moment, before shaking her head and rattling Naruto around a little in the process. "But that's not the point! The point is, Sasuke was just as much at a loss as you are now, and it's totally normal to have the jitters." She glared at him. "The real test begins when you get home. And if I hear even so much as a single_ murmur _out of Hinata that you aren't doing your job as a father, I will personally drag you out of whatever hole you and Kakashi-sensei will be hiding in and pummel the living hell out of you."_

_Naruto blinked. "What, you mean my Hokage training?"_

_Sakura sweatdropped. "Yeah, sure. Whatever it is you two are calling it. You could be watching soap opera reruns for all I care. So long as you stay with Hinata and help her, you'll be fine, okay?"_

_She gave him one of those sickeningly sweet smiles that he just_ knew _would mean pain should he break his word._

 _When his eyes steeled and his face relaxed into a state of pure determination, Sakura only looked slightly taken aback. "I will_ always _be there for my son, Sakura. That's a promise."_

_She gave a small, knowing smile in return, and patted him on the knee. "Atta boy."_

_As she began to stand, the door to the hospital room opened slightly into the hallway, and a smiling nurse poked her head out._

_"Ah, Lady Sakura?" she asked gently, after her eyes found the woman she was looking for. "Could you please assist us for a moment?"_

_Sakura jumped a little, before smiling back. "Oh! Of course." She turned back to Naruto, and winked at him. "Don't worry. I'll call you when it's all over. I promise."_

_He stood to follow her into the room, but she slammed the door in his face, leaving him in the empty, sterile hallway._

_Alone, again._

_Several immeasurable minutes – hours –_ days? _Naruto couldn't tell anymore – passed, as he slowly knocked his forehead on the wall out of both boredom and anxiety. The small clock that had been hung on the other end of the hallway ticked mercilessly at his eardrums, nearly driving the last of his sanity out of his mind, as the world began to spin-_

_"Do I have to keep babysitting you? For Kami's sake, if you want to meet your son with as few brain cells as humanly possible, be my guest – although I think Hinata would kill me if I let you."_

_Three minutes._

_It had been_ three minutes.

_He turned slowly to look at Sakura, who was simply tapping her foot in the doorway, arms crossed in fake agitation._

_Naruto blinked. Wait… did this mean-_

_"Did it happen?!" he blurted out, eyes wide in increasing excitement. "Can I see her now?"_

_Sakura just raised an almost…_ patronizing _eyebrow and smiled at him. "Sure, you can see both of them. Come on in."_

_Naruto's heart fluttered._

Both _of them._

_He was a father now._

_His limbs moved of their own accord, as he numbly began to tune out everything else in the world, save for the lone hospital bed that sat in the corner of the room, surrounded by a ring of cooing nurses._

_"Aww, he looks just like his father!"_

_"He's going to be so handsome when he grows up, I can tell you that much!"_

_"When he grows up? Come now – just look at him! He's adorable!"_

_"Shh, shh! He's coming! Make some space!"_

_The nurses shuffled out of the way with beaming smiles on their faces as Naruto approached._

_The first thing that caught his eye was his wife's dark violet hair, splayed out in all directions on the pillows that she was propped up against. Her brow was coated in sweat; her expression both exhausted and insurmountably happy._

_Settled in her arms was a small wrapping of blankets and clothing, and she was speaking to it gently._

_A sharp cry echoed throughout the room, and Naruto's heart stopped completely._

_His son._

_That_ _was_ his _son._

_Naruto simply stood there, several feet away from his wife and child, as they interacted with one another; absolutely entranced by the beauty and the magic of both the moment, and Hinata herself._

_That was, of course, until a swift jab to his side broke him out of his reverie._

_"Go on," Sakura whispered gently, pushing him along._

_"Hey, guess who's here?" Hinata said to the bundle in her arms with a smile. "It's your daddy! Your daddy's here to see you!"_

_His heart was thundering in his chest, blocking out all sounds other than the soft murmurings of the child in her arms. Every fidget, every coo, every decibel of sound. He took it all in, almost as if it was_ he _who was the newborn._

 _For the first time that evening, Naruto and Hinata locked eyes with one another, as mother and father. It was almost as if something clicked inside of his mind, and a deeper bond was established – something much deeper than anything he had ever felt before. His heart ached; he wanted nothing more than to sit down on the hospital bed with her and just_ be _with her – her and their child._

 _Their_ son _._

_So, he did._

_"N-Naruto, wait!" Sakura called out from across the room, as he gently eased himself onto the edge of his wife's bed, eyes shifting down towards the small blond boy in her arms. She opened her mouth again to scold him, but when she saw the tears begin to drip down his face silently as he took sight of his son for the first time, she decided, just this once, to let them be._

_And she had to admit, they made an adorable family – Naruto, with his big, goofy orange hoodie, Hinata with her pale violet hospital gown, and the small baby in her arms. The three of them, together._

Happy.

 _A small ache in the back of her heart began to pulse again, not for the first time in recent months. But, instead of dwelling on could-have-beens, she decided to relish the moment of her best friends_ living.

 _Naruto was completely awestruck at what he saw below him. Two large, wide, electric-blue eyes met with his own, settled under a crop of messy, tangled blond hair._ His _hair._

 _Elements of his own physiology stuck out to him like a sore thumb – now that he mentioned it, the boy's hands_ did _look an awful lot like his – but looking more closely, he could definitely see elements of Hinata as well. His cheeks, his nose; the way he looked out at the world with a profound curiosity._

_But most surprisingly, at least to him, were the two small scar-like markings that ran across each of his cheeks._

_Just like his._

_"He's beautiful," Hinata murmured gently, leaning forward and giving him a kiss on the forehead. The child fidgeted slightly under the attention, but quieted quickly when he locked his eyes on his father's own whisker marks. A strange look of confusion and curiosity burgeoned across his infant face, like the sun cresting over the horizon, as he began to squirm and fidget in his wrappings._

_"I think he wants you to hold him," she whispered to Naruto with a smile, gently maneuvering the baby in her arms until the new father had the proper vantage point to grab hold._

_With precision that Sakura had honestly never seen the blond man exhibit before, Naruto carefully lifted the boy up to his chest, eyes wide and lips shaky all the while._

_The child cooed a little in his father's arms._

_Naruto smiled – his most treasured, prized smile. The one that could light up a pitch-black void. It was infectious – and it seemed the baby couldn't resist its charm, either. He began to grin just as widely, mimicking his father to an adorable tee._

_Tears began to build up behind the blond man's eyes again. It was like he was looking in a mirror._

_With a gentle touch, he began to slowly stroke the baby's cheek endearingly, tracing out the scars as he went._

_His eyes sparkled with emotion as the baby reached up and grabbed his finger, his entire hand barely wrapping around it._

_"Hello, Boruto."_

* * *

"Are you feeling okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine."

Naruto sighed as he and his son continued trekking onwards, towards the city walls. The great Village Hidden in the Leaves was just up ahead – Naruto could already see the massive mountaintop plateau looming on the horizon, now magnificently lit by the steadily rising sun.

He frowned and looked back at Boruto, who was jumping ahead of him ever so slightly, still clinging to his clone for support. "Are you sure you don't need anything? Are you hungry? Thirsty? I think I've got-"

The boys landed on a tree branch for a moment to turn and glare at their father. "I'm fine! Seriously! Just quit talking to me, okay?"

Naruto narrowed his eyes at the Boruto that spoke – the original Boruto, although the clone was shooting him a nasty glare – as he landed beside them. "Okay. What's wrong."

It wasn't a question.

"Nothing's wrong, I've already told you-"

Boruto's eyes widened when his father's hand clasped his shoulder, as he looked down at the boy sternly.

"Boruto. I know you. Better than you probably know yourself. You _are_ my son, after all." He bent on his knees, a small, _tiny_ smile blossoming on his face. "Now please, _please,_ just tell me what is wrong. That's the first step to fixing a problem, y'know – figuring out what it is."

The boy simply stared into his father's calm, collected blue eyes, as they pierced his soul, seemingly dragging the answer out of him with their pleading, worried gaze.

He scoffed. "I can't believe you still don't know. Even now."

Naruto raised his eyebrows. "Huh? What are you talking about?"

"What am I talking about?!" Boruto shouted, eyes flaming in childlike fury. "It's been a week, dad! You had a _week_ to make up for it, and yet you _still_ forgot! Even after all that time!" His eyes softened a little, as they shifted to the floor beneath him, unfocused absentmindedly. "Even mom is mad. But she's too nice to say anything about it."

The Hokage was genuinely confused. "What? Too nice to say anything about what?"

To his surprise, his son started… _laughing._ "That's the worst thing, too! You _still_ don't know! Like it's the furthest thing from your mind, isn't it, y'know!"

Naruto was still struggling to find words when Boruto steeled himself and glared at him, eyes a serious lightning-blue hue.

"Himawari's birthday. _You forgot Himawari's birthday."_

Naruto's heart stopped.

…

…

…

He was right.

He was _right._

The Chuunin Exams, the Academy graduation, the treaty talks with the Village Hidden in the Sea. Everything, all at once, thrown at his feet in a messy pile, demanding to be attended to at that _very second_.

Except it was _all the time._

And now… now he'd done something unforgiveable.

Well, something more unforgiveable than what he had already been doing, for damn near a decade now.

A gaping hole was torn through his heart, and he just stood there, hands on his son's shoulders, shaking as the realization struck him like a bolt of lightning.

He _was_ a terrible father.

Hinata was just saving face by not saying anything outright, the night he had approached her, nearly a month ago. She knew him better than he knew himself, sometimes.

A small, impish smile spread across Boruto's face like a disease, as he scowled up at his father. Naruto simply stood there, quivering, eyes locked in a state of disbelief, as they darted every which way in a sense of unfocused panic. The boy gave a simple nod, satisfied that his father finally – _finally_ – understood everything. And the reaction he got when he told him was just as priceless as he was hoping it would be.

It _had_ to be, considering how oblivious the man had been up until that point.

Shaky hands let Boruto's shoulders go, and they immediately went up and into their owner's hair.

"I… I… I missed…"

Boruto sighed, crossing his arms as he leaned against the treetrunk again, slowly starting to feel guilty for breaking the news so suddenly. "Yeah. You did. She was heartbroken. But she knows how important your job is, and didn't say anything."

Naruto just stood there, quietly, his mouth opening and closing.

Then, he sighed dejectedly, and turned away, opting to look at the horizon instead.

"Hima," he said quietly, causing Boruto to blink at his father. "Hima, I'm sorry. I promise to make it up to you somehow."

Then, he turned around again, a fierce look of determination in his eyes, as he looked down at the boy in front of him. "Boruto, I… I've been an awful father, but… when we get back to the Leaf village, things will change. I swear on my title that things will change."

"As heartwarming as this little family moment has been," echoed a voice through the forest, "I'm afraid I can't just let you waltz back into the Leaf. Not again, at least, after all the havoc you caused there."

Naruto's determined expression shrank into one of surprise – and genuine confusion. "…What?"

Then, his eyes narrowed as his anger began to rise. "Wait a second… I _know_ that voice…"

"Oh, so you _have_ heard of me, then!" A large, burly figure leapt down out of the treetops to a limb several trees away from the blond duo, arms crossed over his green-and-red kimono. "That saves the introduction time, at least."

Boruto watched in confusion as his father's face contorted into a dozen different palpable expressions, each trying to glean some sort of reason behind this newcomer's approach.

At least, that's what he thought was going on.

And he couldn't have been further from the truth.

Naruto gaped at what he saw before him. A massive, tall, bear of a man stood proudly across the trees, his white mane of hair billowing ever so slightly in the windy morning air. A massive scroll was attached to his back horizontally, casting foreboding shadows onto the tree branches before him. His green clothing, open slightly at the front to expose his armored chest, looked just as it did over _twenty_ years ago.

Jiraiya.

And it was a spot-on impersonation, too.

Naruto frowned at the Toad Sannin less than amicably, his cold blue eyes cutting across the clearing like steel. "I don't appreciate it when the dead aren't left to rest."

A raised eyebrow was his response. "What's that supposed to mean?" Jiraiya said with a confused look on his face, otherwise not moving an inch.

Boruto watched in tense anxiety as the two shinobi simply stared at one another for a few suspenseful moments, the sound of the morning winds whipping through the treetops doing nothing to sooth nerves.

"Who are you," Naruto suddenly stated emotionlessly, his voice holding none of its typical carefree mirth.

Boruto couldn't help but shiver slightly at the palpable aura that was beginning to build in the atmosphere. His father was certainly a very different man than he had originally thought.

Jiraiya's eyebrow grew more annoyed. "I already told you. Do you have short-term memory loss or something? Need I remind you _already_?"

"No."

The eyebrow continued to raise. "Oh?"

"You are _not_ Jiraiya," Naruto hissed out through clenched teeth, his eyes still completely unforgiving.

"Now this is just getting ridiculous," the Toad Sage said with an eyeroll, shifting his weight ever so slightly across his feet. "I think that I of all people should know who I am." Then, he matched Naruto's seriousness, pound for pound. "And I, at the very least, know who _you are._ "

Another moment of silence echoed throughout the forests. Boruto slowly inched closer to his father almost subconsciously, looking for some sort of protection from the terrifying Killing Intent the strange white-haired man was exuding like a geyser.

But Naruto didn't flinch – not in the slightest. Instead, he merrily frowned. "And who, pray tell, do you think I am?"

"An intruder," Jiraiya replied effortlessly, the oppressive atmosphere dissipating ever so slightly, just as quickly as it had appeared. "An attacker. An assailant. An overall _bad influence on society._ Need I break out the thesaurus for you?"

"I've had just about enough of this," Naruto spat out, clenching his fists at his sides. "First, some idiot impersonates my father, and now _you?_ _You,_ of _all people?"_

Then, his eyes flickered in what could only be described as twisted understanding. "Oh. I see."

Then, to the surprise of Boruto, his father let out a chuckle. "I see now. You are attempting to use emotional appeal to fight me. Is that the way it is? Take the form of my father – the form of my sensei. Try and get under my skin." He let out another single laugh. "You know, I've experienced a _lot_ worse. I doubt anything can phase me at this point."

Naruto eyes narrowed dangerously. "And I'm having a _really_ shitty day. So just _try me."_

For not the first time that encounter, the entire forest seemed to stand completely still in the tenseness, as the two men stared each other down.

The winds began to rustle through the tree branches again, whipping Boruto's hair around his face and around his forehead protector like the grain in an expansive field in the late summer months.

Then, as if by some sudden signal unseen to the genin, both Naruto and Jiraiya leapt into action – each running through a series of hand seals with practiced ease.

"SUMMONING JUTSU!"

"SUMMONING JUTSU!"

Two massive puffs of smoke proliferated within the clearing, blotching out the steadily rising sun. Dark, foreboding shadows cast across the trees like demons in the mist, deepening with each passing second. Boruto waved his hands in front of his face in an attempt to clear the plumes of white from his vision, to no avail. It was not long after, however, that the winds of the forest banished the smoke from the battlezone, revealing something rather surprising.

Across the clearing, arms still crossed defiantly, stood the man called Jiraiya. What was genuinely jaw-dropping to the younger blond, however, was what he was _standing upon-_

A massive, four-story tall toad, armed with a colossal two-pronged blade of some sort, perched defensively among the treetops.

* * *

Naruto blinked. He may have been a bit rusty, and his chakra control may have been out of whack, but still – _still_ – something _should_ have happened.

But nothing did. And when the dust settled, all he had to show for his summoning was a massive plume of smoke, and an empty treetop – a place where a massive battle toad should have been standing.

He frowned to himself at the thought. The blonde's first reaction had been to show the Jiraiya impersonator what a _real_ Toad Sage could do by wiping the floor with the toads he so brazenly claimed to represent.

But instead, they were alluding him.

Strange.

' _Yet another thing to add to the growing list of weird shit that's going on,'_ Naruto thought to himself with a sigh, as he began to prepare for whatever came next. Lizards? Dogs? Weasels?

Just what exactly would this Jiraiya impersonator summon?

As the smoke cleared away, he got his answer.

And his eyes nearly bulged out of their sockets.

There, standing across the treetops, ready for battle, was Gamaken – the legendary brother of the Toad Chief Gamabunta, and esteemed warrior from Mount Myouboku.

He looked a little smaller than what Naruto had remembered, but Gamaken was Gamaken. Perhaps Jiraiya had summoned him with a little less chakra than normal-

Naruto's brain suddenly lurched into gear, as question after question began to form in his mind. ' _Who is this man? How can he have the summoning contract?'_

 _'And why are the toads_ willingly _cooperating with him?'_

For a sudden, sickening second, the Hokage paled at the thought that the man standing before them was, in fact, an Edo Tensei – a summon from beyond the grave.

But reason caught up with the more rambunctious emotional side of him, and he rattled off, in quick succession, why that simply was not the case.

For one, the man's eyes weren't blacker than coal. No. They were sharp and lively – just as Jiraiya's had been, all those years ago.

Secondly, Naruto specifically remembered grilling Kabuto, the headmaster at the Leaf Orphanage and former conspirator of the Fourth Shinobi War, on the methods and merits of the Edo Tensei he had performed at the precipice of battle.

Kabuto, at the time, had assured the recently-inaugurated Hokage that Jiraiya's body had simply plunged too deep into the seas of Rain to be of any veritable use; in fact, the snake apprentice had been quite adamant in his claims that he hadn't, actually, ever found the body.

And yet, here he was – in all his glory.

Jiraiya. The Toad Sage Jiraiya.

Just what the _hell_ was going on?

" **That settles it, then,"** came the slightly bored voice of the Nine-Tailed Fox within Naruto's head. **"There's no other explanation."**

' _Wait, what?!'_ Naruto gaped internally, still staring at his opponent across the battlefield passively. ' _You know what's going on?'_

If Kurama had an answer, it was interrupted by the loud, barking laughter of the Toad Sannin from atop his toad mount. "BAHAHA! Did you really just go through all that show to try and size me up?" He wiped a tear from his eye endearingly, shaking his head all the while. "I bet you don't even _have_ a summoning contract. What a joke."

Naruto grit his teeth together at the taunting, but otherwise stood his ground. He had fought with Sasuke enough times that, finally, _eventually_ , he had become accustomed to it.

But he would be the first to admit that it certainly took a while.

Fine. If he couldn't attack using the toads, he would attack _as if he were one himself_.

He took a deep breath, and focused externally, grasping for _something-_

There!

POOF!

The Shadow Clone he had nonchalantly hidden among the trees after the summoning failed popped, sending all of its gathered Nature energy to the original in a burst of pure energy.

It never hurt to be too cautious, after all.

Instantaneously, Naruto felt the torrent of foreign chakra invade his system like a raging river, fanning out across his extremities with a familiar warmth. He felt his vision warp momentarily as his pupils changed shape, and from the way his son was looking at him now, he could only assume that he had taken on the visual characteristics indicative of his Sage Mode.

"Boruto," he said quietly, eyes still locked with the smug-faced Sannin across the trees. "When I give the word, Henge into me. I don't know who this man is, but he is very dangerous. If he has the Toad Summoning Contract, then there's little doubt about that."

"The Toad Summoning Contract…?" the boy mouthed in surprise, turning to look at Jiraiya once again – this time with a much more analytical eye. Then, remembering his father's words, he nodded once, his own eyes narrowing in determination.

"Really? You're gonna have your son fight me too? Your _injured_ son? That's either the sweetest, or the stupidest thing I've ever seen," Jiraiya said, crossing his arms as he watched Boruto crack his knuckles. Then, he shifted his vision back to the man.

And his mouth dropped. "Wait… wait a second… is that…?"

Now it was Naruto's turn for posturing. "Yeah. This is the real deal, buddy. I don't know how you got ahold of the Toad Summoning Contract, or how you managed to scratch my name off the list without the old fart Fukusaku finding out, but I will _always_ be able to do this."

He moved his hands together into a familiar seal, eyes narrowing as they connected across his chest in a cross.

"Multi Shadow Clone Jutsu!"

A sea of white rippled through the clearing once again, and Boruto heard the voice of his father call out "Do it now!" from somewhere to his left. He blinked, realizing now what his father's plan was.

Boruto concentrated on the form of his father, as he had been moments before – strange eye markings and everything. ' _Is it just me, or does he have more kinds of eyes than an Uchiha? First those weird red ones, now these frog ones…'_

Shaking his head of the thought, he executed the jutsu just as the last remnants of the fog dissipated once again, still no match for the morning winds the plagued that part of the Land of Fire certain times of the year.

When the smoke cleared, dozens upon dozens – _hundreds_ upon _hundreds_ of Narutos stood atop the trees, all glaring at the toad and his jockey. Boruto gaped at the sight – he had never before seen _so many_ Shadow Clones in his life. Maybe that's why his father seemed to prefer using them over pretty much everything else.

Not that Boruto knew what ' _everything else_ ' constituted. His father was still a locked chest in that regard.

Maybe he'd get a chance to see the legendary Seventh Hokage in action, finally, after all these years of simply hearing hushed whispers about his might?

Suddenly, Boruto realized that something was a bit off with his Henge. After taking a glance at the sea of orange and black that ran across his line of sight in every direction, he realized why.

None of them were wearing his father's white Hokage cloak!

He blinked. He had never – _never –_ seen his father without it. It was strange, really – he now seemed almost more like a human being rather than some sort of omnipotent king. He could see the way his orange long-sleeved shirt hugged the curve of his back awkwardly – almost like it didn't exactly fit him properly.

It was _weird._

' _He must've left it at the Valley of the End or something,'_ Boruto thought to himself, observing the army of Narutos that were beginning to tense like coiled springs – ready to strike at a moment's notice. ' _He's gonna be mad when he realizes it's gone, that's for sure.'_

When something began to nip at his heels, he looked down at himself – his father, currently – and realized his mistake.

The point of his father's plan was to make him as inconspicuous as possible due to the fact that he was, understandably so, the weakest link in this fight. And the bright, beaming beacon of white hanging off of his shoulders was very, _very_ counter-intuitive.

With a flick of his wrist he re-executed the Henge, sans cloak, and joined the huddled masses of clones. He knew that his position in this fight was merrily to stay hidden amongst the crowd – herd immunity. His father would be doing most (if not _all_ ) the heavy lifting.

Boruto looked up towards where the strange bear of a man was standing, still perched atop his toad. Whatever emotion he had splayed across his face was not immediately apparent to Boruto – was it anger? Confusion? Dismay?

…Amusement?

"Nice trick," Jiraiya smirked, shaking his head. "Sure, you may know what Sage Mode _looks_ like, but it's a far cry from the real thing. And shadow clones? Give me a break. What are you, a newly promoted jounin? I bet half of these aren't even solid – just illusions."

Boruto blinked. ' _Sage mode…?'_

Before his mind could process anything any further, however, the faux-sage leapt into action. His hands blurred through a series of complicated hand-seals, before he slammed them down atop the toad's head.

"Earth Style: Mud Wall!"

Boruto blinked as the wall was disintegrated in a blinding flash of bright blue light.

He hadn't even seen his father prepare the Rasengan – but there he was, hand thrust through the barrier in an instant, then gone the next.

It took him a while to realize he was using guerrilla tactics – something they had briefly gone over at the Academy.

Except his father was using _clones_ for all of his attacks.

As the wall collapsed, Boruto was shocked to see that both the Toad Sage and his mount had vanished – the latter in a reverse summoning cloud. ' _What the hell…?'_

Had he not been paying attention, he would not have been able to swiftly dodge the flying kick aimed at his head, coming out of seemingly nowhere.

Boruto was about to break the Henge, thinking that the man had seen through it so easily. But when he turned again on his heels after jumping away, he saw the smoky remnants of an entire platoon of clones, gone in an instant.

He gulped. ' _That was close._ Too _close._ '

As he heard another slew of clones cry out before being vaporized, Boruto immediately hid himself within his father's ranks once again.

Why wasn't his father doing anything? All the clones seemed to be disorientated – either that, or they were focused on something else entirely.

It took a second, but after a few moments, the blond boy realized that the clones were _protecting him_.

As the white blur flashed through the forests, wiping out clone armies, Boruto watched as his father's army positioned themselves very carefully between him and the enemy, distracting him from his primary target.

Jiraiya dispatched wave after wave of clone, seemingly moving through strange taijutsu stances as he weaved in and out of the forest of Narutos.

And he was approaching quickly – too quickly for the clones to redirect.

He was going to fight. And he was gonna have to go up against _that_ man.

Boruto gulped subconsciously. This was _not_ good.

As the strange man rolled and parried through the clone's weak attempts to make contact, he began to edge closer and closer, until suddenly, Boruto was the only 'clone' left in the vicinity.

Jiraiya smirked in victory, reaching out his arm to aim a dispelling strike at the 'clone' he thought stood before him.

_BOOM!_

Without realizing it, Boruto flinched unwittingly, cowering slightly behind his hands as he did so.

But when no strike came, he slowly opened his eyes.

Standing right in front of him, blocking the blow, was his father – his real, flesh-and-blood, non-clone father.

And he was _not_ happy.

"So," he said calmly, obviously unfazed by the Sannin's fist he had caught nonchalantly with his hand, "You know his moves, too. I had to see it for myself. This is very well done, I have to say."

Naruto narrowed his eyes. "But this is over now."

He stuck out his palm, ready to reciprocate with his own strike, but Jiraiya just smirked and dissolved into a puddle of mud.

"You're not the only one with clones up his sleeve, brat," echoed an ethereal voice throughout the forest clearing.

Boruto blinked. ' _This is_ not _good,'_ he thought miserably, ' _We have no idea where he is, or what he can do, and he's at LEAST as strong as Dad. If not more.'_ He frowned. ' _I thought dad was more powerful than this._ '

He looked up at his father to see just how concerned he was, only to find a knowing smile plastered across the man's whiskered, toad-like face.

"You wanted to know if this Sage Mode was real or not?" He called out with a smirk, turning slightly in a circle in order for his voice to carry.

Then, he stopped suddenly and turned his head sharply to the side, staring directly at a felled log a few meters to his right. Naruto grinned mischievously. "Found you."

A pointed grumble echoed around the corner, and the white-haired man walked around the tree trunk, hands crossed in front of his chest. "So, who did you learn Sage Mode from? Steal it from Minato when he was sleeping?"

Naruto scowled. "Don't you _dare_ speak his name like you knew him!"

For the first time, Jiraiya allowed a fluttering of negative emotion to blitz across his face, faster than a bolt of lightning. "Oh? And you _do?_ What are you, his _cousin?_ '

Naruto and Jiraiya were now standing mere feet away from one another, each tenser than rod iron. From what Boruto could see, neither man looked like they would be backing down any time soon. Eyes locked with one another, they stood apart, arms at their sides, winds whipping at their hair.

Boruto knew that all it would take would be a rustle of the leaves, or a blink of an eye. Then, they would be all over one another.

But, surprisingly, Naruto spoke up first.

"Boruto, drop the Henge. There's no sense to it now."

He blinked, but then nodded and did as he was told. As the puff of smoke dissipated, it revealed that the two others were _still_ locked in a tense game of chicken.

"Hmph," Jiraiya suddenly smirked, "So it's true, then. You two _are_ the ones that broke into Minato's office yesterday."

Naruto bunched his eyebrows in confusion. "What? We didn't break in to anything. As a matter of fact, it's more like you and your _impostor_ Minato broke in there instead."

Jiraiya let out an angry huff, and narrowed his eyes at Naruto. "Why do you keep saying that?! You keep calling me and Minato impostors, or fakes, or something like that. If I'm not the _real_ Jiraiya, then who is?"

Naruto's vision clouded over in a haze of pure, unadulterated hatred, his hands shaking at his sides as he clenched them into rough fists.

"The _real_ Jiraiya, and the _real_ Fourth Hokage are dead."

* * *

Naruto couldn't believe it. This man – this _imitation_ – actually _fought_ like Jiraiya. He _talked_ like Jiraiya. He _acted_ like Jiraiya.

Whoever had done this must have known the man inside and out. There was no doubt about it: he was good, that much was certain.

He watched in irate silence as the fake Jiraiya's face contorted into confusion. "What are you talking about?! The _real_ Jiraiya and Minato are _dead…_ I sure as hell didn't get the memo!"

" **Naruto…"**

"Don't you dare try to deny it!" the Hokage roared, his eyes flashing dangerously between cold, calculating blue and bloodcurdling red. With a burst of speed, he lashed out again, sending a jarring fist right at Jiraiya's face.

The man caught it easily, but buckled slightly under the immense pressure of the attack. A shockwave of pure power ricocheted off the connection, sending a shockwave outwards, cracking the ground beneath their feet in a halo of dust and debris. Rocks were sent tumbling into the bushes, off of tree trunks, careening into the blue sky.

Before either Boruto or Jiraiya could comment, Naruto immediately lashed out again, this time with a swirling kick. Jiraiya ducked behind it easily, leaping into his own attack as he aimed for the man's knees.

Naruto simply took to the air, then, jumping above and over Jiraiya's pointed slash. He performed a corkscrew frontflip as he came down behind the man, fist rapidly approaching his shoulder.

To the blonde's surprise, he struck a solid wall of iron-white hair, hardened by some sort of jutsu. The sound of the collision reverberated around the clearing, sounding more like a gong than a mane of hair. Slightly surprised, Naruto leapt back a bit to distance himself a bit from Jiraiya.

If he remembered anything from his training journey with the man, even if this wasn't necessarily _him,_ Naruto could guess what was about to happen.

Sure enough, the mass of silver began to shimmer and gleam, flickering in the smoky haze that had overtaken most of the atmosphere around them. His eyes widened when the hair began to ripple and contort; sharp, spindly portions of it jutting out haphazardly in one fluid direction:

His.

As quick as a hummingbird's breath, the hair needles went ballistic; Naruto frantically ducked and swerved and careened around most of them, but even then, there were too many.

With a flicker of concentration, Naruto sacrificed the last of his dwindling control over his dilapidated chakra control to summon forth a mere instant of Kurama's chakra, a golden beacon of light surrounding him like a warm blanket for a split second as the senbon failed to pierce its pseudo-ethereal form.

But then, it was gone again – and it looked like for good this fight, Naruto thought to himself with a frown.

Instead of dwelling on himself, he decided to return to the offensive, his body blurring under the movement as he took off towards the Sage once again, aiming a swiveling kick at his head.

But Jiraiya was smarter than that. He twisted to the right, spinning so quickly on his wooden sandals that another cloud of dust was uprooted and sent swirling into the air.

" **Naruto!"**

The blonde man was already spinning as well, hands flying out from his body like lightning bolts as he sent out a barrage of slashes and punches. It was all so fast – so powerful – that the air around the pair began to sizzle under the immense pressure and friction, heatwaves dancing off the duel like an ethereal being of pure energy. It was almost tangible; the blond boy standing outside of it, wide-eyed, was quaking slightly as he watched.

Naruto flowed in and out of Jiraiya's well-articulated assaults, most of his blows being blocked at the last possible second by the occasional arm or palm. The Seventh was slowly becoming more and more infuriated – under normal circumstances, were he not so fatigued from the chakra fluctuations, he'd wipe the floor with this man. He was having trouble landing the miniscule blows he could manage, and although numerous, it just wasn't doing it. Were it not for the Frog Kata he picked up when he was younger, he wasn't sure he would be getting _anywhere._

He was going to have to change strategies.

After dipping to the ground and trying to sweep Jiraiya's feet out from underneath him, Naruto pushed off from the ground with a burst of chakra and flew back a few yards to get his bearings. As he travelled through the air, he summoned a pair of Shadow Clones – one of which immediately took to the trees to gather more nature energy once his current store ran out. It was the only thing he was able to rely on currently – his normal chakra system was completely useless. (1)

Luckily, most of his arsenal was compatible with nature chakra.

The second shadow clone used the plume of summoning smoke to sink into the earth, hiding until the moment was right. He always liked to have a bit of redundancy for his plans, considering most of them were ridiculous in nature.

As the dust settled, Naruto wasted no time to leap back into action, forming a pair of bright blue Rasengan in his palms as he leapt back into the battle.

He was out of the fight for less than a second. It was like the blink of an eye to Boruto, who stood off to the side, crouching behind a tree, in order to stay out of the fray.

Jiraiya's eyes widened to unimaginable levels when he saw the two swirling orbs of chakra descend down on him, and he barely had the opportunity to duck off to the side as Naruto landed in the dirt, palms outstretched.

For a moment, nothing happened – it just looked like Naruto froze in time, the swirling maelstroms of chakra in his hands notwithstanding.

Then…

BOOM!

The forest floor cracked, then shattered.

Then _exploded_.

A blinding orb of light expanded to the size of Naruto's body, then faded away, revealing a very _angry_ man as he leapt out of the crater within which they were previously fighting.

"I've had about enough of this," Naruto hissed, standing tall, as he glowered at Jiraiya's wide-eyed form.

He didn't look tired, or fatigued, or otherwise indisposed _at all_.

"How… how in the _hell_ do you know that jutsu…" Jiraiya muttered, his eyes narrowing to dangerous levels. "It seems I have to go all out."

He smirked. "I haven't had to do this in a _long_ time. You should be honored, whoever the hell you are."

His hands began to work through hand seals as Naruto flung himself forwards again, a streak of orange on a backdrop of forest green.

* * *

Just as Naruto was about to make connection, Jiraiya swiveled out of the way, planting his hands on the floor once more.

"SUMMONING JUTSU!"

Two small poofs of smoke were the only indication that the technique had been successful. After a moment, the forms of two small cloaked toads appeared behind the smoke, each perched atop one of Jiraiya's shoulders.

"Wh-what? What the hell? Jiraiya-boy?" The male sputtered in surprise, looking around frantically as Naruto backed off once more – if not for just a moment.

"Hey, Lord Fukusaku," Jiraiya greeted nonchalantly, giving a small wave.

"What is it _this_ time, Jiraiya?" muttered the other toad, crossing her arms in a frown. "Although, I will admit you haven't summoned _both_ of us in nearly a decade."

"Well, desperate times call for desperate measures, Ma," Jiraiya muttered, as he refocused his attention on the glaring orange-clad man across the damaged forest clearing from him.

Fukusaku blinked as he focused on their opponent with curious eyes.

Then, he started. "Wait, Jiraiya-boy, why are you fighting Minato? Surely you don't need _both_ of us to simply spar with him. Both Ma and I is taking it too far, don't you think?"

The toad woman only grunted in affirmation.

"This isn't Minato." From the way Jiraiya was speaking now, they both knew he was all business.

A rarity for the Toad Sannin.

They both blinked in surprise, but it was Fukusaku who began first. "Wait, what? That's not Minato? He looks just like him!" The old toad narrowed his eyes in scrutiny. "Well, apart from the hair. Although I suppose that if Minato-boy ever _did_ actually cut that wild mane of his, it'd look very similar to that."

"Regardless," Jiraiya cut in pointedly, redirecting their attention to the matter at hand, "He's wreaking havoc all across the village. I have to stop him. And he's… he's a lot stronger than he looks."

"Got it," Fukusaku said, smiling as he narrowed his eyes in concentration. "Ma – the usual?"

"The usual," she affirmed with a nod, before the duo formed hand seals and adhered themselves atop their summoner.

With a renewed vigor, Jiraiya leapt back into the fray, the toads doing their best to acquire as much Nature Chakra as they could before battle.

* * *

Naruto gaped when the summoning smoke dissipated, revealing the form of his old master adorned with two of the most powerful Toad Sages of Mount Myouboku. How was this possible?

_How was this possible?!_

Something wasn't right here at all.

" **NARUTO!"**

Just as he was about to respond to his companion, Naruto was bombarded by a series of wind-enhanced fireballs, originating from the trio that stood across the slowly fracturing forest from him. He dodged quickly, leaping and twisting around each one as they made their way towards him.

It would appear that the impersonator knew of Fukusaku and Shima – that much was incredible enough as it was.

Then, as suddenly as was expected of a battle between two respectable ninja, Jiraiya attacked again, his fists now slightly more agile for some reason than before.

Naruto had to be honest with himself. This man, whoever he was, had an incredible talent for pulling off fakes like this… or, at least, for faking it all entirely. There was always the incredibly minute chance that he was fighting someone with a genjutsu prowess higher than even the Uchiha – stranger things had happened, after all.

Regardless of the reasons, or the methods behind his deception, the man had tainted Jiraiya's honor. And, as he was a Kage-class ninja from the most respectable village in the known world, he suspected that there was a connection between the strange events of the previous day, and the unknown assailant he was currently attacking now. He was an idiot if he couldn't see that much.

 _'I just wish my chakra wasn't completely blown out of whack,'_ he muttered to himself, teeth gritting under the pressure of the man's surprisingly powerful attacks.

He was getting progressively stronger.

And then, he felt it.

It was just a trickle, but he felt it nonetheless.

_Nature Chakra._

Someone else, or _something_ else, was stealing Nature Chakra from the surrounding forest… he could feel the tiny prickling at his skin signifying that his energy was being stolen.

Nature chakra, while nearly limitless power, did have its drawbacks. For one, the user – or gatherer, in both Naruto and Jiraiya's cases – had to remain perfectly still and "one" with nature as they gathered the necessary chakra to maintain a steady equilibrium within their bodies. This was a troublesome problem to have, but Naruto, being Naruto, had found a workaround through Shadow Clones pretty quickly.

The second, and much less… _frequent_ problem one could have with fighting in Sage Mode was that there was, inherently, only enough Nature chakra to go around. It all depended on your range, your affinity towards gathering it, and how well you stored it within yourself once it was yours.

And, of course, the surrounding environment had a recharge rate that was significantly _less_ than the rate of retrieval most Sages had. Traditionally, it was not a problem for many, because Sage Mode was considered a trump card in most cases.

Jiraiya may have had an imperfect grasp of the art of obtaining it within him, but he was always able to finish his fights quickly and effectively. Naruto _had_ needed quite the quantity of Natural Chakra for his defeat of Pain over twenty years prior, but he had his clones gathering the energy from the high cliffs of Mount Myouboku itself – where Nature Chakra was nearly as pungent as the humidity that hung over the mountain range like a fog.

But, most importantly, most Sages never had to fight _another Sage._

So, if one Sage's abilities in the art could technically trump another, or for that Sage to steal the Nature Chakra of the other once the surrounding forest was bled nearly dry...

Naruto blinked in surprise as both the revelation, and one of Jiraiya's supercharged fists, struck him in the gut. He winced in pain, cursing to himself as he coughed up a bit of blood from the impact.

For the seemingly hundredth time that battle, Naruto attempted to enter his Nine-Tailed Beast Mode and finish the battle off in a flash, but for some reason he was unable to. The same could be said for his Sage Mode – although he did still have some of the more basic functionality available to him.

' _Damn chakra overloading,'_ he frowned, refocusing his attention on the task at hand. He wasn't as skilled at battlefield logistics as Shikamaru, who could seemingly hold a steady conversation, read a book, battle an enemy, _and_ still think about what was for dinner that night _all at the same time._ As such, he needed his full focus.

Something that was becoming increasingly difficult, as he felt the Nature Chakra leaking out of his system like a sieve.

With a massive blast of power, Naruto flung himself into the air once again, closely followed by Jiraiya and the two toad sages.

Upon closer inspection, Jiraiya had completely entered Sage Mode as well.

Interesting.

Suddenly, the man weaved through a series of hand seals once more, pursing his lips in preparation for something particularly nasty. The two toads appeared to be doing the same, although still completely adhered to his shoulders.

Naruto had a pretty decent idea as to what it was.

"SAGE ART: BATH OF BOILING OIL!"

Almost instantaneously, the three sages began to spew chakra-infused toad oil, wind, and fire together in a fiery, burning sludge. The world around them slowly began to ignite and char; the cool, damp morning air replaced with smoldering hot ash and waves of heat that seemed to permeate everything for miles.

As Naruto began to descend again, he desperately searched the trees below for any sign of his son. Sure enough, he spotted Boruto frantically climbing a tree, broken leg awkwardly clinging to the side of the trunk in desperation as the wave of lava quickly began to approach him.

"DAMN IT!" he shouted, eyes blistering in rage.

Just as he was about to plummet into the pool of molten oil beneath him, Naruto vanished in a swirl of leaves – leaves that were, almost instantly, incinerated by the incredible heat.

The next instant, he was standing beside his son, eyes darting every which way in a frantic search for a solution to the rapidly approaching river of immensely bright, white-hot fluid.

"Shit," he hissed, eyes glazing over in desperation, as he searched quickly through his memory banks for something – anything – that would save both him and his son.

* * *

Boruto's eyes widened as the wave continued to approach, eyes darting between his father and the oil, his father and the oil, his father…

His father!

Naruto suddenly leapt into action, his hands blurring through a series of messy seals. Snake. Ram. Horse. Hare. Ram. Horse. Hare.

A bead of sweat ran down his forehead as he completed the jutsu, eyes razor sharp as the wall of lava began to block out the sun, proximity now so close that it occupied the majority of Boruto's vision.

Then, to the boy's surprise, his father turned and looked down at him.

Naruto calmly raised his hands in front of him, palms out, between the two and spoke, a worryingly calm smile on his face.

"Water Style: Water Prison Jutsu."

Boruto began to panic as water quickly encapsulated his entire body in several cubic meters of shimmering blue, buffering him with what, he hoped at least, would be enough to let them survive in their current state.

He struggled to hold in his breath, eyes looking through the glimmering water surface at his father…

…who was still standing outside of the bubble, right hand only slightly submerged.

And he still had that smile on his face.

Boruto's heart dropped when he realized what Naruto was doing.

"NO!" he screamed through the water, the bubbles rising to the surface with the remainder of his lungs' air within them. He began to struggle against the prison, but it was just that – meant to hold someone in absolute certainty. His eyes were wide with terror, watching in abject resignation as the wave of boiling oil began to rush down around them.

Naruto turned, then, finally, to look back at the wave that was steadily approaching, his face locked in seriousness.

Then, the wall struck.

"DADDY!"

* * *

Minato sat nervously in the chair beside his wife, gently stroking the back of her hand with his as he held it closely to him. To his left stood the Third, still in his full battle gear, gazing out the window as the sun crested the treetops and began to illuminate the hospital's expansive eastern wall with a warm, endearing glow.

"The fire's shadow will illuminate the village," he muttered to himself, pipe clenched between his teeth.

"Pardon?"

"Hmm? Oh, nothing. Just an old man's musings."

Minato raised a slight eyebrow at that. "Old? Hiruzen-sama, you're still in your mid-fifties."

The man only gave a sharp sigh, his breath fogging up the chilled window before him. "Yes, I am, but that is still quite old in shinobi terms. Most ninja do not live to see their thirtieth birthday."

"Yes," Minato nodded in agreement, "You've made it this far because of your spectacular skill. There's a _reason_ you've made it to fifty-six."

"Hmm," the Sarutobi man only muttered, neither in agreement nor in denial.

The conversation died after that. Minato simply stared at the closed eyelids of his wife, praying to any god that'd listen for her to open them again, if only for him to gaze into her violet blue eyes just one more time.

He clenched his jaw in worry – both for his wife, and his sensei. It had been nearly fifteen minutes, and Minato had heard absolutely nothing from the Toad Sage in regards to his safety, the appearance of the Kyuubi, or those two blond ninja that he had seen the previous day.

All was quiet.

Then, all of a sudden, he felt a twinge of… _something_ tugging away at the back of his mind.

He started.

"Hiruzen," he blurted suddenly, standing up so quickly that the chair he was situated in flew backwards, his wife's hand going limp at her side, as it was before. "Jiraiya needs me."

"Go, then," the Third uttered amicably, waving Minato off without even averting his gaze from the horizon. "It's as I said last evening. I will make sure nothing happens to Kushina. You have my word."

He turned and stared him in the eye, his pipe held dangerously between his canines. "Go."

Minato froze for a moment, eyes steeled, before he nodded calmly and vanished in a flash of golden yellow.

Hiruzen returned to the window, pipe shifting from side to side within his mouth as he looked back out onto the village he had sworn to protect for nearly thirty years ago as its Hokage, and then ever since. His eyes glimmered with respect as he looked out onto the magnificent portraits of his senseis and his successor, as the sun began to warm the rock.

"When the tree leaves dance, one shall find flames…"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's the next chapter for ya! Apologies for skipping a few weeks with uploading. Next chapter will be out tomorrow as well, then we'll go back to the Sunday upload schedule!
> 
> Thanks for reading!  
> -Endo


	7. Chapter 7

_"Boruto? Are you paying attention?"_

He couldn't see straight. He couldn't think straight. He felt a strange calmness wash over him; as if he was content to just _be_ , wherever it was exactly he was currently. Thousands of colors danced in front of his eyes, flickering from one to another in rapid succession, traipsing across the boundary between real and illusion.

It was beautiful. Boruto never wanted to leave.

_"H-huh? Shino-sensei?"_

A nagging hum began to poke away at the back of his mind, driving him out of his nirvana. He desperately sought out the warm embrace of the strange-colored land again, flailing his arms about in the quickly darkening abyss.

_"You heard me, Mr. Uzumaki. Please, give the class a detailed description of the Fourth Hokage."_

Strange voices began to ricochet between his eardrums, exacerbating his headache to an almost mind-shattering degree. Light became pain, and pain became a memory as time seemed to pick up speed once again, his downward spiral quickening with every throbbing heartbeat.

_"Uhh…"_

The voices were beginning to grow in intensity and vigor, rattling around his fragile mind as the blackness began to grow blacker, the euphoria from earlier completely sapped away by the deepening darkness.

_"It was in the required reading, Mr. Uzumaki."_

More sounds became clearer as the black enveloped him like a cold blanket, its embrace unwelcoming. What was previously voices became the sound of a howling tornado, followed by a raging river, followed by…

_"I know! I read it! I'm just… tryin' to remember, y'know. Uhh, the Fourth Hokage was Minato Namikaze, the youngest Hokage that the Leaf has ever had."_

Silence. Everlasting silence. Boruto let out a sigh he didn't know he was holding in, but no sound or air came out of his mouth, much to his surprise. It was like the world was a vacuum; completely and utterly devoid.

_"He was known for being a hero in the Third Great Shinobi War for destroying an entire battalion of Hidden Stone shinobi."_

Suddenly, a small speck of bright white light appeared on the horizon, miles and miles away from where Boruto was currently falling. Still, without much of a second thought, he reached for it desperately, as if it was the essence of humanity itself. It called to him – _beckoned_ him.

_"Uhh... he died in the attack of the Nine-Tailed Fox almost 40 years ago."_

The light began to grow in size and intensity, now the size of a small dinner plate.

_"His signature technique was the Rasengan... right?"_

A howling sound, like a hurricane, began to gnaw away at Boruto's thoughts as the orb of white light began to grow closer…

_"Actually, Boruto, the Fourth was better known for his Hiraishin. You are correct in that he invented the Rasengan, but it was your father that properly brought it to fruition."_

Closer…

_"Wait… Hiraishin? What's Hiraishin?"_

* * *

Boruto surged into the light, his entire body seemingly catching fire as it began to feel again, then hear again, then feel again; and, slowly, see again.

His eyes began to fuzzily readjust to consciousness, the outlines of objects growing sharper and sharper with each throb of his head. Trees began to reform as trees, the bright and unblemished blue sky became more rigid and recognizable, the orange blob next to him began to grow more and more humanoid with each passing second…

Boruto jumped awake, shaking whatever confusion or doubt he'd had from his mind as he did so. He gagged and coughed on the water in his lungs for a moment, hacking up the liquid as quickly as he could, and drew in a series of frantic, desperate breaths.

His father was lying next to him on the charred ground, seemingly unhurt and muttering profanities under his breath. The bubble he had been submerged in was nowhere to be seen, although both he – and his father – were completely drenched, leading him to believe that it had burst long after being struck by the oily cascade.

"…D-dad?"

For some reason, the phrase ' _Good thing oil and water don't mix'_ kept rattling around his throbbing head, as Boruto leaned up into a sitting position with a groan. He looked back down at his father with a worried frown, giving him a more thorough observation now that he could see properly again.

Naruto was surprisingly unscathed, which confused the blond boy thoroughly. The last thing he had remembered before being struck by the force of Jiraiya's attack was his father smiling sadly down at him from outside the water bubble, as if he was planning on sacrificing himself to save the day. But instead of being a charred lump of flesh on the ground, his father was pretty much fine.

The same could not be said about his clothes, however; Naruto's once-orange dress shirt was now mostly in tatters, hanging off of him like a bunch of rags more so than the dignified garment is was intended to be. The majority of it was now a charred black husk – at least, the majority of whatever was _left_. The entire right half of his body was open to the elements, exposing his equally battered white undershirt and plenty of skin.

But that wasn't what was the most shocking to Boruto. As his eyes travelled from what used to be the neckline of his father's jacket down his arm, he almost jumped out of his skin in suprise. Halfway down his father's bicep was a visible line - separating warm, tan skin from ghostly, cold white. Several strange tattoos ran down the sides of the arm, lacing together like one of the many sealing patterns he had studied in school. The charred remains of what little bandage was left after the incident at the Valley of the End clung to the flesh like glue, most likely burned into the surface indelibly. The rest of the strange hand didn't seem to fare much better, charred and burnt nearly everywhere across the surface. It was a sickening sight, really; one that nearly made Boruto gag. Or maybe that was just the smell.

As if aware that his son was staring at him as if he were a summer snowstorm, Naruto shook his head and jumped to his feet, cringing a little as all the blood rushed out of his head. With a frown, he looked down at his completely destroyed outfit and growled.

"Damn it, that was my favorite shirt," he mumbled to himself, cracking his neck as he did so. When he felt the tingling sensation of being watch tickle at the back of his mind, he immediately swiveled to the left to meet the gaze of his shell-shocked son.

Immediately, Naruto began to rapidly fire questions at the boy, looking him over from head to toe. "Are you okay? Anything hurt? Broken? Err, well, more broken than before?"

The boy looked like he was trying to say something, but every time he opened his mouth, nothing came out. Instead, he just pointed a flabbergasted finger at the decrepit limb laying at Naruto's side, eyes wide in confusion and anxiety. "D-Dad… your arm…"

Naruto blinked once and glanced down at the singed appendage, sighing deeply when he noted the extent of the damage. "Shit… Tsunade's gonna kill me when she finds out I blew through another one. This damn thing's pretty much useless now."

Without a second thought, he stretched his left hand to the strange fault line on his upper right arm, and gave it a strong chakra-infused tug.

Boruto watched in horror as his father ripped his _own right arm clean off_ , the pale white skin separating from the rest like putty peeled from glass. Naruto nonchalantly took the hand in his left and began to move on from it almost immediately, as if this was _totally normal to him_.

Just _what kind of man was he?_

"Dad?!" Boruto blurted out in disgusted surprise, taking a slight step back from what he could only assume was the biggest masochist on the planet. "Y-your arm!"

Naruto gave a confused frown, and looked back and forth from the white limb in his hand and the stump where it used to be. "What? Is there an infection or something? I try to clean under the prosthetic every few nights before bed to make sure that doesn't happen, but I've been pulling a lot of all-nighters at the office the past week or so…"

He waggled the stub in Boruto's direction worriedly, as if hoping the boy would give it a quick inspection. Instead, the boy nearly gagged and turned away, when he realized what his father was currently holding like a bag of groceries was actually never his father's real hand to begin with.

Surprisingly, though, there was no blood. He began to parse through his father's previous statement, eyes widening when he realized what Naruto had said.

"A prosthetic?" he muttered, suddenly looking at the eggshell-white appendage under a new light. No wonder his father kept it hidden beneath bandages all the time.

"Uhh… yeah? You didn't know that?" Naruto said in surprise. "I've been an amputee since before you were born. Here…" He motioned to the boy that he was gonna toss the arm his way. "…hold this, will you? I don't know where that bastard that did this is, but I bet he's gonna make his grand reappearance any second now. I need my hand free." He blinked when he saw the disgusted expression on his son's face as he moved to toss it midair. "Relax, it's just a prosthetic. I swear. Nothing gross about it. I have some things sealed in storage seals on that thing that I need, so can you just hold it for me, okay?"

Boruto grimaced, but finally nodded, catching the limb gingerly as it flew towards him. It was surprisingly light, and still a little warm to the touch, but definitely still unnerving to look at – especially up close. The boy opted to instead focus his attention on his father, who was looking around the charred battleground for any sign of Jiraiya or the man's new toad friends.

"Wait," he blurted out suddenly, a question popping into his head as he replayed recent events back in his mind. "Why aren't you… well, y'know… dead? I mean, you took that entire lava river thing right in the back just to save me…" his voice cracked a little, much to his everlasting chagrin, "…and thanks, but…"

"But why am I not burnt to a crisp like that arm?" Naruto smirked, pointing at the prosthetic in Boruto's hands with a shrug. "Honestly? I dunno. I think the strength of the impact forced me into the bubble with you – although the jutsu requires that at least one hand remains in contact with the outer surface of the water prison at all times. So I guess that explains why the prosthetic's shot." He smiled almost reminiscently, reflecting on past experiences. "It was a gamble, and I took it. I seem to have the strangest luck when it comes to things like that."

He winked. "Had a good feeling, though. Those are always good signs."

Boruto just blinked in surprise, still reeling. His father took that time to frown dangerously at the horizon, cracking his neck again as he did so. "Alright, asshole, come out and play," he muttered to himself. "You hurt me? Fine. But when you go after my son?"

He clenched his left fist into a harsh ball at his side, his eyes narrowing into slits. "You won't be leaving here intact."

"Funny, but it seems like you're one to talk," came a sharp chuckle from seemingly everywhere at once, as the toad sage once more appeared in a swirl of leaves a few paces away from the two blondes. The remnants of the charred woods were just that; all that remained of the lush, teeming forest were smoldering stumps and the patches of singed grass that managed to evade most of the flaming oil.

Naruto snarled at the man in fury, his eyes flickering blue and red as a small trickle of blood began to drip down from his clenched fist, fingernails having penetrated the skin long ago.

"Whoever the hell you are," he muttered out, "I'm finishing this. Right here, right now!"

Naruto was moving again before Boruto could even finish processing his last words, his left hand held back behind him as the atmospheric density rose and rose. The ripples in the air became more and more tangible as they focused themselves above Naruto's outstretched hand, forming the basic Rasengan in a mere blink of the eye. But it kept going – kept spinning, kept swirling, kept _hissing_ with some unknown power. A flicker of white began to blend in with the brightly glowing blue, and the air around the three shinobi began to howl and snarl as the barometric pressure fluctuated wildly under the influence of this new, much more powerful Rasengan.

The churning mass of chakra began to glow a warm orange as it slowly spun faster and faster, before all that was visible to the naked eye was an occasional flash of a wind blade every moment or two. It was a fierce, screaming beacon of energy that manifested itself in less than a quarter of a second… not that Boruto was counting. He was too awestruck by its creation to do anything but clutch the prosthetic and watch what happened from the sidelines.

Naruto's eyes narrowed as they locked on Jiraiya's shocked face, before he shouted out in declaration, sending the rippling orb of chakra sailing through the air.

"Wind Style: Rasenshuriken!"

* * *

Naruto smirked internally when the perfect execution of his most prized technique roared to life in his outstretched hand, just _itching_ to inflict pain on whoever it was the dared to endanger himself, his village… and his son.

He watched in slight fascination as the orb of chakra went flying across his fingertips like a shotput, wondering just how, exactly, the Jiraiya impostor was going to escape this one.

The short answer? He wasn't going to.

**"NARUTO!"**

Naruto's blood pressure dropped.

' _Oh shit,'_ he muttered inside his mind, _'I'm sorry, Kurama. I got kinda emotional back there. And I tend to block out everything when that happens…'_

He winced in preparation for the fox's belligerent rebuttal, but froze when something caught his eye.

Time seemed to slow down.

His eyes had to be deceiving him. They _had to be_.

He never thought he'd ever see what he was currently seeing ever again.

Not since the war.

A yellow flash of light enveloped the clearing, directly in front of the Rasenshuriken as it careened across the earth on a collision course.

Standing in its place as the light faded was Minato Namikaze, the late Fourth Hokage.

**"DAMN IT, NARUTO, YOU INSOLENT BRAT!"**

And it was then that his tailed beast reached out of his mind and yanked him down inwards, leaving him outwardly unconscious and absolutely confused.

* * *

Jiraiya blinked as the raging, swirling, screaming ball of energy - shaped suspiciously like his student's infamous Rasengan - drew closer and closer. The two toads had long since left, not expecting anyone to have actually survived the last assault.

To be honest, Jiraiya didn't expect anyone to have survived either. But then again, these two blondes were just _full_ of surprises.

His mind began to rattle off a few weak suggestions in the short span of time between when the orange-clad man across the clearing lobbed the so-called "Rasenshuriken" at him, but everything led to one final, sad, determined fate.

It was funny, thinking he would go out this way.

There was no way he could dodge this. It was going to hit – and hit _hard._ Jiraiya could already tell based purely on the condensed chakra alone. The Rasenshuriken could level an entire forest if it had to. There was nothing left in the surrounding area for him to Body Swap with, considering he had just vaporized everything that wasn't bolted to the ground. He could shunshin away, but at this point, he still wouldn't be out of range in time to escape. All of his special toad-based barrier techniques required several hand seals, and he barely had the time to form _one_.

With a hint of desperation, Jiraiya willed his hand to move to his chest anyways – if he was going to go down, he was going to do so while fighting. A shunshin might not be the best option, but it was all he had.

Then, he remembered Minato's kunai, stored away in the front pocket of his kimono. Instead of moving his fingertips into a half ram seal, he quickly dipped them inside his shirt, and dropped the special tri-pronged blade as quickly as he had dislodged it.

Minato was there before Jiraiya could even blink, appearing in front of him in a flash of bright sunlight.

Instantaneously, the man had a pair of Rasengan in his palms, stretched outwards in a defensive position, as the hissing Rasenshuriken edged closer and closer and closer…

* * *

Naruto blinked, as the dark glow of his mindscape came into focus. He was currently sprawled out on the waterlogged floor, staring up at the ceiling that seemed to stretch into eternity.

And standing over him was the absolutely _livid_ Nine-Tailed Fox.

**"DAMN IT, NARUTO! I TRIED! I TRIED TO RESPECT OUR BOND, AND NOT FORCE OUR CONNECTION! BUT I CANNOT STAND BEING IGNORED A MOMENT LONGER!"**

The Seventh Hokage grimaced as the fox shouted down at him, moving to stand once again. "Okay! Look, I'm sorry! But why did you have to pull me in here, y'know?! I was in the middle of a fight! My son's still out there! Now that I'm out of the picture, who do you think they're going to go for next?"

 **"IT DOESN'T MATTER!"** Kurama snarled, his tails twitching behind him in fury. **"If I had half a mind, I would kill you where you stand!"** The other tailed beasts had moved off to the side, watching in both amusement and curiosity as the demon and its jinchuuriki interacted.

"What are you talking about, it doesn't matter?!" Now it was Naruto's turn to become livid. "That's my son, damn it! How _dare_ you call him an acceptable loss!"

**"Would you just listen to me?! I've been trying to get your attention for the past _five minutes!_ And you've been blowing me off!"**

The fox's expression grew slightly sly, as he turned to the side and began to walk away, back into the darkness. **"Now I know how your family feels."**

Naruto's heart skipped a beat. "W-what? What did you just say, Kurama?"

 **"I _said,_ " **the Fox suddenly roared, lunging forward until he was staring Naruto right in the eye, his hot breath rippling through the man's hair, **"That you're being a shitty father! And if you'd just listen to what I have to say, you'd be out of this mess!"**

Sensing the fox's disparity, Naruto acquiesced. He slumped his shoulders in defeat and sighed. "I… I know. I know I'm being a shitty father, and a shitty jinchuuriki. So… I'm sorry. Okay?" He looked back up and into the narrowed eyes of his partner. "I've… I've just been under a lot of stress the past few hours, y'know? And having to deal with having all nine of you in me is taking a toll on both my physical and mental state. I honestly am having trouble just thinking straight, let alone talk with you while fighting some asshole who thinks he can call himself my godfather and get away with it."

The fox sighed slightly, his eyes softening as he did so. **"Eighteen."**

Naruto blinked. "Sorry?"

 **"Eighteen,"** the fox reaffirmed, leaning back and crossing his arms across his massive upper body. **"You said you have nine tailed beasts in you right now. But you actually have eighteen."**

A confused heartbeat threatened to burst its way out of Naruto's chest. "W-what are you talking about? There aren't any more than nine in existence! W-well, not including the Ten-Tails, but that was just all of you in one body, right?" He gestured at the other beasts, who, up until this point, had remained silent.

 **"Brat! Do you seriously believe I didn't realize that myself?"** Kurama growled, his red eyes flickering in annoyance. **"I wouldn't be telling you this if I wasn't absolutely certain. You can't see them, because we merged together whenever whatever… _this_ is happened. So we have the power of _two_ tailed beasts instead of one currently. It's why you had to jettison so much chakra."**

"Why are you telling me this now?! Why not when we were… oh, I don't know… walking? Instead of in the middle of a fucking _battle_?!"

 **"Because I wanted to be sure I was right first, you imbecile!"** the Nine-Tails roared back, barring his teeth imposingly. **"If you thought it was ridiculous, imagine how we felt! But it all makes sense! The fact we're all together in your body again, why you're so fatigued, why you have so much chakra…"**

"Kurama, what are you talking about?" Naruto's voice was suddenly worried.

 **"What I'm saying is, brat, that whatever happened yesterday was much, _much_ worse than either of us thought originally." ** He narrowed his eyes again. **"And it also means that you currently have the chakra capacity of almost two entire Ten-Tailed Beasts inside of you right now.** "

Naruto's eyes shot open, blue imploringly searching crimson for any signs of deception. When he found none, the man shivered slightly and shook his head in disbelief.

"I… that just…" he sighed in an effort to gather his thoughts. "A-are you serious, Kurama? _Two_ of the Ten-Tails? Is that even-"

 **"And not just that puny excuse for a Juubi that you ran into during the Fourth War, either,"** the fox continued, figuring it'd be best to rip the band-aid off in one fell swoop. **"That pipsqueak was operating with only a droplet of my chakra. But now…"** Kurama sighed heavily, shifting topics as he went. " **At your current levels, you have about ninety-five percent of the entire world's chakra capacity in your body right now, as we speak."** The beast raised an eyebrow at that. **"Honestly, I'm impressed. Were it anyone else, they would have popped like a balloon and taken out half the continent immediately when it happened."**

Naruto gulped in surprise, before looking up into the eyes of his Tailed Beast with apprehension. "Okay… so you're saying that I currently have more chakra than anyone else on Earth right now? And isn't that a good thing?"

 **"Not just anyone on Earth, brat; _everyone_ ," **the fox corrected. **"And no, of course it isn't, you idiot! Don't you see what it's doing to you right now? You can barely focus enough to make shadow clones, and you're fighting those puny weaklings as if it was a friendly spar! You should have been able to wipe them off the map at the bat of an eye!"**

"W-wait, why is it bad?!"

**"Haven't you heard of diminishing returns?"**

"What? What does that have to do with anything? That's economics, not chakra capacity."

Kurama's tails twitched in growing agitation. **"The meat sack you humans call a body can only handle so much chakra at a time. After a certain point, it starts doing more harm than good. Almost all of your energy and concentration is being devoted to keeping yourself in balance."**

Naruto stood silent for a moment, before shaking his head and narrowing his eyes. "So I just have to figure out a way of _reducing_ my chakra amount until I'm back to the point where I can function normally, right?"

The fox blinked in surprise. **"Actually, yes,"** he ceded. **"But you're missing the problem entirely! Don't you see what's _wrong_ with this picture?!"**

"Well, for one, I have to deal with all nine of you – all eighteen of you, technically - for the foreseeable future," Naruto mumbled, "And I have to figure out what to do with all of your chakra until then."

 **"No, you idiot!"** the beast roared suddenly. **"The problem is that this _should be impossible!_ You're currently carrying around more chakra than has _ever existed_ , _ever!_ All at once, in one place! It's not natural! You're a time bomb, Naruto!"**

Naruto frowned, then nodded in agreement. "Yeah, you're right. This _is_ impossible. At least, it should be impossible."

Kurama sighed, a low grumble of agitation echoing past his lips. **"Yes… it _should be_ impossible. And yet here we are."** He looked up from the ground and met Naruto's eyes once again, this time full of deliberation. **"But with recent developments, I have a feeling I know what's going on."**

"What? What's going on?"

The fox grumbled something under his breath, as if he refused to believe it himself. Regardless, he narrowed his eyes and flared his nostrils.

**"Time travel."**

Naruto's slightly anticipative expression flatlined in an instant. "You can't be serious."

**"It makes sense, brat! Two sets of each tailed beast, occupying the same realm at the same time, one overwriting the other. You're continuously running into relics of your past. The pieces all fit, Naruto."**

The Hokage's skin began to pale as realization sunk into his bones. "Wait… so you're saying…"

**"That those two people you're fighting – the blond brat that sealed me into you in the first place, and your ridiculous white-haired freak of a sensei – they're real, yes. All their skills, all their abilities. And they're angry."**

Naruto's heart leapt into his throat, his eyes wavering ever so slightly in the dimly lit hall. "So… that man that just appeared… is my father? Is actually my father?"

He froze in realization.

"And he's going to try to kill me, and my son…"

* * *

Minato wasn't exactly sure what he was getting into when he teleported into the battle. It was one of the bigger drawbacks of using his Hiraishin over such long distances; he was never truly sure what would await him on the other side. For several months, he had been working on a way to somehow channel a small bit of chakra from the blade back to his body, and he had actually succeeded in doing that much. It was what allowed him to sense when someone had thrown it. However, his further experiments to somehow allow himself to glean a bit of information from the area surrounding the kunai upon the chakra retrieval proved fruitless.

So, Minato was forced to rely on his incredible reaction time to use the Flying Thunder God to its fullest effect. There was a reason why Hiraishin was considered an S-ranked forbidden technique, and it wasn't just because of how difficult it was to master.

Although that _was_ a large part of it.

And so, when he saw the massive orb of strangely familiar swirling chakra heading straight for both him and Jiraiya, he did the only thing he knew how to do.

He summoned forth two perfect Rasengan, and braced himself for the impact.

Time slowed down. He knew that it was simply a result of the adrenaline coursing through his veins, but it was still rather annoying. Now the world was moving at a snail's pace, trickling along like a stubborn spring. He could watch the beads of sweat on his opponent's face manifest themselves into beads, each threatening to meander their way down his chin by the force of gravity. He could watch the smoke from the smoldering piles of ash that were once trees drift up into the sky like beacons. He could see each individual swirl of chakra in the oncoming projectile, make out each individual detail…

Wait!

Was that wind chakra?

In a _Rasengan_?

Minato floundered for a minute, caught up in his surprise as he continued to watch the enemy's jutsu careen towards him. Well, it felt like a minute. To most outsiders, the Fourth's very obvious shock was evident for less than a hundredth of a second – simply a flash across his face.

The moment the other Rasengan connected with his, he knew immediately that it would not withstand the incredible force. But he had already committed to it; he had no other options left. He could always try to reach behind him and grab Jiraiya in an attempt to Hiraishin them out of range, but not even _he_ was that fast. He could always leave Jiraiya behind, but… then he may as well turn in his coat and headband. He wasn't fit to be Hokage, or even a Leaf ninja at that point.

The wind-based Rasengan was already tunneling through his own, and he was very quickly reaching entropy. To drop the jutsus now was certain death.

They were set to burst at any moment.

And then, Minato caught the sight of the strange, orange-shrouded man toppling to the floor from his peripheral vision. The strange orb of offending chakra began to dwindle and fade as the man slipped into unconsciousness across the battlefield, until all it took was a very forced push of chakra from Minato's palms to disrupt its fragile balance.

That didn't mean it didn't explode, however.

Minato held his hand out in front of his face as the clearing lit up like the sun, vibrant beams of bright white light ricocheting off of his eyelids and burning into his retina. He quickly averted his gaze to avoid damaging his eyesight, before executing a quick seal-less shunshin, appearing behind Jiraiya, and whisking them off to a kunai he had left a few hundred feet away.

Once the visible blast wave dispersed, Minato and Jiraiya returned to the scene. The strange blonde-haired man was still lying motionless on the compacted dirt, seemingly unharmed by the explosion. Minato immediately moved to secure the man. There was not a chance in hell he would not be taking advantage of his opponent's incapacitation. It was simply protocol; although Minato had no idea what it was specifically that had caused the man to slump over prematurely, an opportunity was an opportunity.

As Minato began to walk towards his doppelganger, he subtly watched as the man's son, the one he had seen a little less than twenty-four hours prior in his office, came hobbling over from his previous hiding spot. He gingerly held his bandaged leg with one hand, a kunai tightly in the other, eyes blistering with determination.

"Wait! Don't hurt him! Please don't hurt my dad!"

Minato blinked at the boy's plea. Was he seriously trying to bargain for this man's life? The man who had nearly singlehandedly killed Jiraiya in less than ten minutes?

No. He was a liability. He had to be apprehended.

"P-please…"

The boy - named 'Boruto', if Minato remembered correctly – had a look of terror on his face as he walked up to the Fourth Hokage, trembling slightly as he did so. Minato had to admit that Boruto was being incredibly brave – he was only twelve, maybe thirteen, and was blatantly standing up against the only man in the history of the Five Great Nations known to have a 'flee on sight' addendum to his bingo book profile.

"You know I can't allow that. This man - your father, I'm to understand? – has committed crimes against the Leaf. He needs to be detained and taken into custody."

Boruto blinked in obvious surprise, taking a step back in confusion. "What? N-no he hasn't! I've been with him for the past two days straight! I would have known if he did something bad, y'know!"

Minato narrowed his eyes, subtly filing away the fact that the child had a verbal tick very similar to his wife's for later digestion. "Your father, whoever he is, is clearly an S-ranked ninja. I can tell that much even without checking the bingo book. It is very likely that if he didn't want you to see something, you would have never known."

The boy suddenly let out a scoff, averting his gaze. "Pshh. Isn't that the truth."

Raising an eyebrow, Minato took a step forward, attempting to take advantage of Boruto's redirected attention to disarm him before he did something reckless. Minato moved slowly and deliberately, pausing briefly as Boruto jumped in alarm when the boy realized what was happening. When he made no move to act irrationally, Minato continued to inch his hand forward, before suddenly snagging the kunai from the boy's quaking hands.

"There. See? No problem." Minato let a small smile grace his lips in reassurance, as the boy's eyes began to quiver.

Then, they lit up in recognition. "H-hey, wait a second… I know you! You look… really familiar."

Minato let out a slight chuckle at that, his eyes turning upwards in mirth. "Honestly, I'd be surprised if you didn't. My face is probably smeared across wanted posters and bingo books all over the rest of the world. Wherever you're from, I've almost certainly got a bounty on my head there."

The blonde man could nearly see the gears in the boy's head turn as they stood there, before he jumped in realization and took a step back. "Wait… wait, no, that's not right. You can't be him."

"How do you mean?" Now it was Minato's turn to be confused. These two blonde shinobi, whoever they were and wherever they yielded from, were certainly quite the enigma.

Boruto shook his head again, pinching his eyelids shut briefly before slamming them open again. "I'm dreaming, right? I have to be!"

"Hey," Minato said softly, holding a hand out as a peaceful gesture. "Don't panic. We're not going to hurt you. I just need you to cooperate, okay? It's better for everyone if you do things our way."

"N-no!" Boruto took a step back, looking up at Minato with fear in his eyes. "I… I don't know who you are, but you're _not_ the Fourth Hokage!"

"Yeah, and the other one kept saying that I wasn't the _real_ Jiraiya, either," came a gruff voice from Minato's right. When he looked up, he saw the imposing form of Jiraiya, arms crossed, standing beside him. The Toad Sage turned and met Minato's gaze, a slight hint of confusion hidden within. "Well, what do you think we should do, Minato?"

"Why do you think we're not who we say we are?" the Hokage suddenly asked, turning back to look at the boy – who shrunk back slightly on reflex. Sensing the child's fear, he gave a small smile, and kneeled down to meet Boruto eye-to-eye. Minato wasn't a particularly tall man, but one's legacy seemed to amplify things like height and power in face-to-face meetings. "Please don't be afraid. I'm not going to hurt you. I'm just curious."

"Y-you can't be real," Boruto mumbled, eyebrows scrunching up in the middle of his forehead, "Because the _real_ Minato Namikaze is dead." He turned to Jiraiya, then. "I don't really know who you are, although I recognize your face from somewhere too. But I know you're not around anymore either."

Jiraiya sweatdropped. "Of course. _Everyone_ knows the _venerable_ Fourth Hokage, but nobody bothers to remember the humble master who took the man under his wing and taught him everything he knew."

Minato had to resist the urge to roll his eyes. They were still in a tense situation, after all. Regardless, he couldn't resist the urge to let out a small quip, a smile gracing his lips. "You could have always taken the job instead of me, Sensei."

"What?! Are you crazy?" Jiraiya gaped, taking a step back in recoil. "You _know_ I couldn't do that! I have things to do! Places to be! People to see!"

" _Naked_ people," Minato muttered under his breath, as he turned his attention back to the boy, who was simply watching the exchange with slight confusion. "Now, you say I'm dead. But _I,_ at least, know very well that that isn't the case. Well, not yet, anyways." He offered a tentative smile at that, as he rubbed at the back of his neck.

Boruto tensed up suddenly, before his cold, electric-blue eyes met Minato's in a determined glare. "Then prove it."

Minato blinked. "Uhh, prove it?"

"Yeah. If you're _really_ the Fourth Hokage, then _prove it_."

 _That_ took Minato by surprise.

Jiraiya, however was having none of it. "Come on, brat. The Hokage's not a circus clown."

"Wait, Sensei," Minato gently interrupted, holding a hand out to his side to silence the man. "I'm curious. What would you have me do to prove I'm who I say I am? If it'll help you cooperate."

Boruto narrowed his eyes in contemplation, before subtly smirking. "Alright. If you can prove you're real, I'll come quietly. I'll get my idiot dad to do it too, somehow… when the asshole wakes up, anyways. As long as you promise not to hurt us."

"Consider it done," Minato nodded.

"Alright then." Boruto took a hesitant step forward, shifting his weight off of his bad leg with a wince. "The _real_ Fourth Hokage is the only man on Earth that can perform the Hiraishin technique flawlessly. Do that, and I'll-"

Boruto wasn't even done with his sentence before Minato vanished in a bright yellow flash, appearing across the clearing at a kunai he had thrown moments prior. He plucked the knife from the earth, before flicking it across the battlefield an instant later, rematerializing just in time to snatch it out of the sky before it cut through Boruto's hair.

"How's that?" He smiled, not even out of breath in the slightest.

Boruto couldn't help but gape, as the white-haired jounin beside the two blondes scoffed and wrinkled his nose.

"Pshh. Showoff."

Minato smiled warmly over his shoulder. "You're just disappointed because you still don't understand the Hiraishin, even after spending nearly a year on it."

"That's not true! It was more like nine months, and I was working on other things! I couldn't have _possibly_ figured it out in that little amount of time!"

Minato chose to ignore his sensei, instead focusing his attention on the boy in front of him. "Well? Is that proof enough for you?"

Boruto nodded dumbly, still visibly surprised that the Hiraishin was _real,_ let alone just executed flawlessly in front of him. "Y-yeah. I'd ask you to do the Rasengan, too, but I saw you use that against my dad's, so I know it's real." He gave Minato a cheeky, tooth-filled grin at that. "So I guess you _are_ the Fourth Hokage. In that case, where've you been for the past 40 years?! The village is gonna be super excited to see you! My dad's gonna have to step down, and we'll have to figure out what to do with all the extra heads on the monument, and then the village will throw a big party, and maybe-"

Jiraiya rolled his eyes as Boruto began to ramble on about things that made no sense whatsoever, and quickly moved behind the boy to swiftly knock him out. It would be easier, at least in his mind, to transport the pair of unruly blondes if they were both unconscious.

However, just as his hand was millimeters away from the back of Boruto's neck, a firm, tanned hand slapped around his wrist and pulled, painfully.

"Touch him, and you die. I don't care _who_ you are."

"Please, I would rather not escalate this any further than necessary," Minato monotonously stated, face once more steeled and primed for whatever was soon to come. He watched as the recently reawakened blond man's eyes softened at his voice, and Jiraiya was soon freed from the grasp.

"D-dad?!" Boruto jumped back a bit from the scene, startled by the fact that Jiraiya had tried to render him unconscious. His father gave him a small smile and a subtle wink, which reassured him greatly, before turning back to the pair of legendary shinobi.

Minato watched as the man reflexively took a position between them and his son, lone arm held in a hardened fist. To his surprise, the man spoke first. "Look… I'm sorry about what just happened earlier. It was… just a big misunderstanding. I'm assuming you would like to take us in for questioning, but you'll have to understand that I cannot divulge too much information."

Then, the man's son tugged at his arm, redirecting his attention. "Dad… I may have told them that we'd come quietly if they proved they were real. That guy's the Fourth Hokage, I think – and I still don't know who this asshole is." Boruto cast a killer glare at Jiraiya, who just put his hands up in a placating manner and stepped back a bit.

"Yeah… I know." Naruto sighed and cracked his neck, shifting his gaze down to his son. "They're real. I didn't think they were at first, but… but they're real. It's a long story."

Minato watched the small family interact, and a pang in his heart reminded him of his primary objective there. The slightly endearing look on his face evaporated almost instantly, and he narrowed his eyes at the blond man in front of him.

"What did you do to her."

Naruto jumped in surprise – at the fact that Minato had asked him a question in that harsh, untrusting tone, and at the question itself. "I-I'm sorry?"

"My wife. What did you do to her."

Naruto just raised a confused eyebrow. "I'm sorry, Da-erm, Hokage-sama, but I have no idea what you're talking about."

Minato's gaze turned furious – not that most people would know what that looked like. It was a side of the Namikaze that hardly ever came out… and even when it did, Minato's calm demeanor made it quite difficult to differentiate from his other moods. "Don't bother. I know you're lying to me. Now tell me what you did to Kushina, and we can put all this behind us."

* * *

Naruto's eyes widened in shock as his father began to question him like a petty thief, his eyes boring into his own. It was incredibly surprising, especially from someone like Minato, but Naruto deduced that there was more behind his father's promotion to Hokage than just physical prowess.

He knew that all too well himself, after all.

"Tell me. Now. Whatever you did to Kushina, is it reversible?"

His heart leapt into his throat at the name of his mother.

His _mother._

If they were _really_ back in time, and his father was here, then it made sense that his mom would be as well. Out of both of his parents, Kushina was the one that he honestly wished he could speak more with. Their brief communication back at the very beginning of the Fourth War was something he replayed in his mind on an almost daily basis, and every time, he wished it could have been longer.

It seemed that fate had deemed him worthy.

"What's… what's wrong with her? That might help me figure out what you're talking about."

Minato's eyes narrowed dangerously, before he sighed slightly and acquiesced. "She's in a coma. Has been for almost twelve hours. Now don't play dumb with me. Please."

A small knot in Naruto's stomach twisted into place, as if his subconscious mind had figured something out and was refusing to tell him the rest.

"A… a coma?" he murmured, eyebrows pursed together in thought. Something was wrong here…

 **"Brat,"** Kurama suddenly interjected, **"Tell me this. If I told you that we're back in time, and that you have the power of the Tailed Beasts from both our time _and_ this one, what do you think happened to the originals?"**

Naruto's eyes nearly fell from their sockets.

"Oh… oh no…"

**"Yeah. 'Oh no'. I was never a big fan of that habanero brat, but she's your kin. Out of respect for you, I advise you do something to save her, and fast."**

' _What can I even do?! I guess I can split your chakra in two and give her half, but how are we to know that what happened when we got here,_ whenever _we got here, won't just happen again?"_

**"As painful as it is to suggest it, you can always perform a yin-yang split. That, at least, will maintain itself after the transference has been performed."**

Naruto blinked in surprise. " _Kurama? Are you sure? Are you sure you want to do that?"_

**"Until we can figure something else out, it should be fine."**

A tender smile wormed its way onto Naruto's face. " _…Thanks, Kurama. You're truly an amazing person."_

**"Hmph. Don't get used to it. And _don't_ compare me to your ridiculous species."**

"Does he always do this?"

Naruto jumped when he realized he had been staring off into space for a moment or two, and that Minato was giving him a strange look – one mixed with confusion, anger, and worry.

The Seventh Hokage rolled his shoulders and took a deep breath. "Okay. I think I can fix this." He paused for a moment to think, then nodded. "Two birds with one stone, actually. Take me to her, and I can reverse… whatever it was, exactly, that happened to her."

Minato's eyes narrowed. "So you _do_ know what happened to her."

Naruto pinched the bridge of his nose as he began to walk towards the village, the others falling into line behind him. "Look, I don't know what caused what happened, all I know is that the Nine-Tails' seal malfunctioned somehow. That's the extent-"

When he felt the cold blade of a kunai pressed against his jugular, Naruto froze. Minato's voice was rigid and calm in his ear, but still very much livid.

"How did you know _that_? Kushina's jinchuuriki status is an S-ranked secret. To speak of it so lightly is punishable by death."

Naruto just smirked. It wouldn't hurt to tell _some_ of the truth, he supposed. "Relax, Hokage-sama. I know my kin when I see them."

The kunai at his neck fell immediately. The Seventh turned slightly on his heel to look back behind him, only to see Minato standing back a bit, eying him suspiciously, with a slight bit of surprise in his eyes.

Followed by disbelief.

"Wait, you're a jinchuuriki too? Of which Tailed Beast?"

Naruto smiled sheepishly, reaching behind his neck with his hand and scratching his hair. "Ehh, heh, it's a long story, a story I'm honestly not entirely sure of yet myself." He quickly changed the subject. "Let's just get this over with. The sooner we get to her, the better her chances."

He turned completely and looked at his son authoritatively. "Boruto, do you have my arm?" When the boy nodded in the affirmative and held it up for his father to see, Naruto smiled and turned back around.

"Why should we trust you?"

This time, Naruto's gaze hardened, as he looked out onto the horizon, where the massive frame of the Hokage Monument began to rise up from the Earth like an obelisk.

"Right now, I'm the only chance you've got at saving your wife." He began to walk again, eyes narrowing fiercely.

"And I'm _saving_ that woman's life. I promise you that much. Whether you trust me or not is irrelevant."

* * *

"YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME!"

The sound of her voice echoed through the white emptiness around her for a moment, before uncannily disappearing like a whisper. The stifling vastness of the blank, white void was driving Kushina insane; if something didn't happen, and quickly, then she was going to have to take drastic measures.

…Not that she knew what drastic measures she should take, if she was honest with herself. But whatever actions she _did_ take would sure as hell be drastic, if _she_ had anything to say about it!

The redhead slouched back over again, lying down on the crystal white floor of what she could only assume was purgatory. "This is useless."

Then, she shot up again, eyes wide. "Oh shit. I have work in the morning."

Back down again. "Oh well. I'm pretty sure Minato can get someone else to deliver that letter."

And up again. "But I'm the best qualified for that mission, damn it!"

And down. "I guess it's better to give someone else the opportunity…"

And up. "But I can do it solo! They're gonna have to hire an entire team, and it's gonna be annoying, and…"

And back down again. "Oh, whatever. It's just a stupid delivery mission. Although I would have liked to have seen the Hidden Sand again, it's pretty there. Yeesh… I haven't been to the Sand in what, four years?"

Kushina froze.

"Wait, was that…"

When she felt a gust of wind strike her face for the second time in what felt like _two_ eternities, she nearly whooped in happiness. "YES! Something other than boring white! Not today, Kami! Not today!"

A blurry outline manifested itself on the horizon, as she strained to make out its shape. It wasn't _too_ large; only about the size of a relatively tall man. It was the color of the man's hair that gave her tremendous hope.

"…Minato?"

The specter chuckled and materialized completely in front of her, rubbing his hand through his blonde hair. "Ehh, no. Sorry. But he's here with me though! I'm here to try and fix whatever it was that happened to you. Are you okay?"

Kushina took a step back and frowned. "Who are you? I've never seen you before."

She could have sworn she heard the man whisper "not yet" underneath his breath, but he was already speaking properly by the time she was about to make her rebuttal. "I'm a friend, I promise. Like I said, I'm here to help." He gave her a smile that could have melted even the iciest heart, and offered her his hand.

Begrudgingly, she accepted it. It wasn't like she had much of a choice.

As he helped her to her feet, she took a moment to observe her "savior". He was an impressively tall man; that much was obvious. His hair was disheveled and looked like it had never come into contact with a comb in its entire life, as well as slightly singed at the edges. His clothes, if you could even call them that, were in tatters, barely hanging off of his slight frame like rags. To her surprise, she noted that he was an amputee – for what reason, she was unsure. From what was left of his right arm, she could guess that it was a wound from long ago. Perhaps a childhood ailment?

Otherwise, most of his other notable features, save for his bright blue eyes, were blurred by whatever technique he was using to talk to her. It was slightly disconcerting, but she, strangely enough, felt a strong urge to trust the man.

"So…" she began tentatively, narrowing her eyes at him. "Where exactly am I? And what's the plan?"

The blondie pursed his lips in thought, turning to the side and observing his surroundings. "Hmm, I'd say by the feel of this place, this is your mindscape. Well, what's left of it, anyway."

Kushina nodded in acceptance. "Yeah, that makes sense. I _thought_ this place felt familiar. Any ideas as to why I'm trapped here? And why it looks like a wasteland?"

The man narrowed his eyebrows. "From what I can tell, something went wrong with your seal. The Nine-Tails… moved elsewhere, and left you here with nothing in the seal. In order to protect your mind from whatever side-effects are involved with a tailed beast extraction of this type, it trapped your mind here in the process. Either that, or your mind did it itself. It's not really clear." He rubbed behind his head in that funny way that Minato always did, smiling slightly in embarrassment. "Regardless, you're fine."

"Wait, did you say the Nine-Tails escaped?!" Kushina yelped in surprise, grabbing the man by the upper arms and rattling him slightly. "What?! Is everyone okay? Is Minato-"

"Relax," the man stressed, placing his own hand on her shoulder – a feat that was easier for him to do than for her, considering he was a solid head taller than she was. "Everything's fine. We were able to… apprehend the Nine-Tails, and he's safe."

Kushina raised an eyebrow. "I don't give a damn if _he's_ safe or not. As far as I'm concerned, _he's_ not even a _he._ Just an obnoxiously hostile piece of crap that only cares about himself, y'know?"

She couldn't be sure, but she thought she saw the man's eyes flash in indignation for a split second, but by the time she turned properly to look him in the eye, it was gone again. "Hmm, I suppose," was all he said in response.

"Well alright then, so long as nothing's awry top-side." She shrugged her shoulders and the two sat in awkward silence for a moment, before Kushina snapped her fingers and looked at Blondie questioningly. "Wait a second… if the Nine-Tails left my body, how the hell am I still alive? I thought an extraction was a death sentence?!"

Another knowing look from the man was her response at first, before he rattled his head for a moment and gave her a small smile. "Actually, it's the breaking of the _seal_ that kills the jinchuuriki. Not the extraction itself – although the two are typically one in the same, really."

Kushina raised an eyebrow. "So you're saying that the seal _wasn't_ broken. But the Nine-Tails was extracted anyways. I didn't think that was even possible."

"Neither did I, until today," the other man muttered, shaking his head slightly. "It's been a… weird day, I'll tell you that much."

"Yeah, I'll say."

"…"

"…"

Blondie clapped his hands together with a smile, then, finally tired of the awkward silences between the two of them. "Alright then! Hopefully this works. I've never done it for real before. Just in practice."

Kushina narrowed her eyes at him. "Wait, what are you saying? Why the hell are _you_ the one doing this then, if you've never done this before?! What even are you going to do? Where the hell's Minato?"

"Easier this way," was all he said, as he moved his lone arm up to his chest and began to work his way through a series of one-handed hand seals. Kushina was impressed; it took a _tremendous_ amount of willpower and chakra control to properly pull off one-handed seals – something that typically took years to master. Hell, her husband, a genius in his own right, wasn't able to get them down after a solid year. He _could_ do them now, just not with any particular gusto. With a few more months of training, though…

"Alright!" Blondie exclaimed in preparation. "I'm gonna give you back Furball now. Be nice to each other, got it?"

Kushina opened her mouth and closed it a few times in surprise as the colloquial mention of her prisoner, before she felt the bland white edges of her mindscape begin to twist and melt away, revealing a harsh rocky surface. A tremendous pool of lava reappeared in a deep, cavernous ravine beneath her, above which floated a massive stone boulder, riddled with chains and broken restraints. And it was unoccupied.

So it was true, then.

The Nine-Tails _had_ broken out somehow.

"Seal!"

It only took an instant, but Kushina was still startled at the feeling of having an entire entity of chakra shoved back into her gut like the stuffing to a toy. She squirmed a little in place as a wave or two of nausea washed over her, before everything settled into place once again. Her mind looked like hell, her sense of being had returned, she had a way out…

…and the Nine-Tailed Fox was standing next to her, looking bored.

And he was _unrestrained._

"Gyaaah!" she yelped, quickly moving through a few hand seals of her own on instinct. A moment later, a series of massive adamantine chains burst from the ground, flying through the air at breakneck speeds, beginning to surround and subdue the beast before he did anything reckless…

…such as pop back out of her like a balloon.

"What the hell?!" both Blondie and Kushina exclaimed simultaneously, each glaring at one another as the chains began to wrap around the increasingly agitated demon fox beside them.

**"Naruto!" the fox snarled in indignation. "What is the meaning of this?!"**

"Relax, Kurama!" Blondie shot back, not breaking eye Kushina's eye contact in the slightest. "Now, Kushina, I need you to relax. Let him go."

"What in the name of Kami are you on right now?! Not a chance in hell!"

"He's a friend! Don't chain him up like that!"

Kushina nearly snarled at him. "And what, let him roam around my mind like some sort of vagrant? Let him pop out of me whenever he feels so inclined? No!"

Blondie sighed, and shook his head. "Look… you only have a half of the fox. The other half is in me. He's not been locked up inside of _me_ for the past…" He paused for a second to think, "…two, erm… days. I trust him. You should too."

But Kushina wasn't having _any of it_. "Take him back, then. I'd rather die than let that… that _monster_ free."

Blondie sighed again, shaking his head slightly this time. "Fine. I'll give him one chain. One!" He shot a glance at the fox before it could make a rebuttal, "Alright! You'll be fine with just one. Okay?" He turned back to Kushina. "Does that sound good? The seal will be just as strong as before, I promise."

When Kushina sensed no malicious intent coming from the man, she begrudgingly agreed. "Fine. As long as the seal's still intact."

As the chains around the Nine-Tails began to retract, a simple ball-and-chain wrapped itself around the beast's rear paw, which he grumbled incoherently about for a moment before settling in for a nap.

"Hmph," Blondie grumbled, "Lazy asshole."

Kushina was inclined to agree.

"Alright then," the man smiled, looking down at her with his hand on his hip. "Shall we head back out again? Keeping this technique up for an extended period of time is seriously frazzling my chakra coils."

With a small eyeroll - coupled with a smile - Kushina nodded and vanished, returning to the land of the living.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Next chapter will be up on Sunday. I'm going to try my best to keep uploading chapters every week up until I run out of my backlog.
> 
> See you next week,  
> \- Endo


	8. Chapter 8

"Kid? Kid?! Damn it, not all over the floor!"

A wastebin was shoved under Boruto's face just as he began to wretch and heave, the entire congregation of shinobi in the hospital room turning for a moment to watch in an almost morbid fascination.

Minato blinked, the corner of his mouth turning upwards in a hidden smile. "Ah… heh, sorry about that. I had the same reaction the first time I used the Hiraishin myself. Don't worry, the feeling passes quickly."

Boruto just looked up from the bin with a blank expression on his face, his pale skin coated in a sheen of sweat. "I… I hope so."

And he promptly threw up again.

Jiraiya sighed from the corner, grabbing the boy's shoulder and leading him out of the room. "C'mon. I'll take you to get some fresh air."

As the door clicked shut behind them, Minato let out a small sigh, and slinked back in his chair. He sat in abject silence for a few moments, attempting to calm his rattled brain after the rather shaking events of the previous day.

He hadn't even been Hokage for a full _month_ yet.

Was this kind of traumatic event going to happen often?

"No, it doesn't happen often. You need not worry about that."

Minato blinked and turned to look at his predecessor, who was _still_ looking out the window aimlessly, as the noonday sun rose steadily over the village. It was almost like he hadn't moved at all since Minato saw him last.

As if he sensed the blonde's scrutinizing gaze, Hiruzen took a hearty puff from his pipe and moved away from the window, settling into the seat next to Minato's.

"Am I really that easy to read? Seriously?"

Hiruzen smiled and shook his head. "Now, now, Minato. That's not always such a bad thing. It means you are honest. Both with yourself, and with others."

The Fourth sighed and ran a hand through his hair, blond dancing with pale tan. "I suppose. But that doesn't help me in most situations. Especially not now."

Hiruzen only raised an eyebrow, a small trail of smoke rising out of the smirk on his lips. "Is that so? Then tell me, Minato, why is it that you brought this S-ranked shinobi of unknown origins, and unknown intentions into the heart of our village? Why is it that you are allowing him to operate on your wife in this manner?"

Both of their gazes shifted to the one-armed blonde standing above the hospital bed across from them.

Minato blinked, before narrowing his eyes and clenching his hand into a fist across his pants leg. "Because… I trust him. I don't know why, but I do."

The Third only let out an amused murmur. "I see."

The two sat in silence, then, watching as the blonde man stood above Kushina, his one hand pressed gently against the seal on her stomach. His forehead knotted in concentration as a few beads of sweat worked their way down from his brow, dripping off of his face and onto the tattered remains of his clothing.

"Do you know why I chose you as my successor, Minato?" Hiruzen asked after a minute of deafening quiet, gripping his pipe between his teeth.

Minato deliberated for a moment, watching the strange blonde man do… whatever it was he was doing. "Hmm. Well, traditionally, the seat of Hokage is given to the strongest shinobi in the village." When Hiruzen said nothing, the Fourth narrowed his eyes and frowned. "But, as with all things, there's more to it than that. There's the diplomatic aspect, as well as a more sociable favorability needed to run a village of this size."

"You're too humble, Minato," the Third pointed out, chuckling as he reached in his shinobi uniform for a small canister of tobacco. Hiruzen loaded the pipe with the material with the meticulousness and ginger hand that only came with being a seasoned smoker, as he shifted the wooden object from one hand to the other.

"No. The reason why I chose you over my promising young pupil is quite simple, really." With a snap, a small flame erupted across his index finger, which he held in the bowl of the pipe for a moment before a steady trickle of smoke began to waft out of it. "You have something he doesn't. Something most shinobi don't have, as a matter of fact."

A comfortable silence settled over the duo, as Hiruzen took his time to collect his thoughts and contemplate how to put them into words.

Finally, he turned his head and met Minato's gaze, a small smile on his face. "The amusing thing is, you seemed to marry the only other person in this village that has the same traits."

At the mention of Kushina, Minato raised a bemused eyebrow. "Oh?"

"You both are excellent judges of character, Minato. You have always been able to sniff out the worst in people, and the best. It's why people appreciate you so much, and what makes you such an excellent leader. You're certainly right in that there's more to being Hokage than an impressive arsenal, which you certainly do have." His eyes twinkled with mirth as he let out a slight chuckle. "But what's in your mind is your greatest asset. That, my friend, is why I wholeheartedly trust your judgment in regards to this fellow here."

He removed his pipe and pointed towards the bedside.

"Well, I certainly hope your trust in me isn't for naught," Minato muttered with a small smile.

"Although I will admit this is certainly one of the stranger things to have happened to this village," the Third continued, letting out a small sigh as he relaxed slightly in his chair. "And within your first month on the job, as well."

They both shared a small laugh, which helped ease the tension. Minato hadn't realized it at first, but he had been subconsciously clenching his hands together into a knotted ball in his lap, which, when unraveled, sent a wave of aching pain spiking up his arm.

He gently waved his hand in the air to alleviate the throbbing, narrowing his eyes as he continued to watch his wife's supposed assailant-turned-savior murmur to himself in a trancelike state. "Still, there are many unanswered questions. _Too_ many." He sighed, and reclined in his seat as well. "Things are just too convenient. Why is he helping us, if he was the one who caused it in the first place?"

"Perhaps it was accidental?"

"Hmm," Minato murmured in agreement. "That's always a possibility. But I'm not so sure. Coincidences simply don't exist in the shinobi world. I still think those two have some sort of ulterior motive."

Then, he remembered something. "There's also the fact that my doppelganger here," he nodded towards the bedside, "hasn't been very forthcoming with information. Granted, we were only able to speak for a minute or two before he demanded we take him to Kushina, but still. He managed to weasel his way out of answering every question I asked him, menial as they may have been."

Minato sighed, and crossed his arms across his chest, bunching up his white cloak slightly in the process. "Then there's the obvious question: who is he? Where did he come from? How did he end up…" He stared at the stump on the man's right side, "…like _that?_ And still manage to be formidable? When most shinobi that lose barely even a finger are out of the game for good?"

" _Most_ shinobi," Hiruzen emphasized with a small smile, eyes all-knowing.

"Okay, _what,"_ Minato turned with a small smirk. "You obviously know something that I'm not privy to quite yet. You might as well say it and save me the time."

The Third let out a slight chuckle. "The father may not be very approachable, but his son certainly is."

"Hmm," Minato murmured again, nodding. "Yeah, that is definitely true. He _has_ said some rather interesting things. That I've been missing for forty years, for one."

"Could've fooled me."

Minato smiled and turned his head to greet his sensei as he lumbered back through the door again, his wooden sandals clamoring on the floor like a drunken band. "Ah. How's the boy doing?"

"Still a little ill," Jiraiya shrugged, crossing his arms and leaning against the wall beside the two Kage. "I left him with a nurse and a clone outside. That jutsu of yours really did a number on him." He turned to the bedside and gave a pointed nod towards the amputee. "Any idea what he's doing?"

"Some," Minato sighed, running his hand through his hair. "Right now it looks like he's talking to her. Some sort of bastardization of the Yamanaka Clan's jutsu. As for how he knows it, though…"

"More questions," Jiraiya muttered, narrowing his eyes. "Are you sure he's not-"

The blond man suddenly began to blur through a sequence of one-handed seals, his fingertips dancing in the air like leaves in a tree.

Then, he slammed his palm down on her chest.

"SEAL!"

Kushina's eyes shot open, as she began to convulse atop the bed, her sheets flying every which direction. The heart rate monitor beside her bed began beep shrilly, juxtaposing Kushina's thrashings in an almost repulsively poetic manner.

Then, everything became quiet. _Sickeningly_ quiet.

The meter flatlined, and the blond man collapsed on the floor in a crumpled heap.

"Kushina?!" Minato yelped, leaping to her side in an instant. His fingers immediately raced to her neck, checking her pulse, as he leaned his ear over her mouth to verify that she was breathing.

"Get. Off. Of. Me."

Minato blinked, then winced when Kushina bit his earlobe less-than-playfully, forcing him to jump back in surprise. "W-what?" In his hysteria, he stumbled over the one-armed man, falling to his back with a graceless "oof!"

The red-haired woman sighed and stretched her aching limbs, cracking her neck as she raised an eyebrow down at the pile of blond beside her, eyes deeply rooted in tired shadows. "I've been stuck inside my own head for Kami knows how long and the first thing I see is your face, right here? I'm sorry, Minato, but I can only handle _so much_ claustrophobia."

"B-but… the heart rate monitor…"

She raised an eyebrow and grabbed at a handful of disconnected monitor tags, feeding back into the screaming machine. "Well, I guess I may have accidentally unplugged a few…"

Her expression turned sheepish, and she blushed when she saw the bite marks left on Minato's ear. "O-Oh. Sorry about that, hehe. I've been a bit more… _temperamental_ recently."

The Fourth just shrugged with a smile and leapt to his feet in one fluid motion. "It's okay. I'm just glad you're alright." His smile evaporated, leaving behind a blank stare. "Err… you _are_ alright, are you not?"

Kushina's eyes darted from her husband to the strange blond man on the floor, the one she had seen in her mindscape. "Yeah…" she muttered to herself, obviously no longer paying attention. "Hey, Minato? Who is that guy?"

"I haven't the slightest idea," Minato murmured, turning as the mysterious began to murmur as he awakened, rubbing at his temple with a groan. "As a matter of fact, I'd love to know the answer to that question myself."

* * *

The first thing Naruto noticed when he woke up was that he had a _screaming_ headache.

The next thing he noticed was that his son had gone missing.

Oh, and he was tied to a _chair_.

"Well this is humiliating," he muttered to himself hoarsely, shaking his head in an effort to relieve the throbbing behind his eyeballs, waiting for his vision to readjust to his surroundings. "That's what I get for trying out a technique I'd only seen once, I guess."

After the dull throb of his head died down slightly, he was relieved to realize that he was still in the hospital room from before, the pearl-white walls nearly suffocating him with their sterility.

And Boruto was _still_ nowhere in sight.

"Alright," he mumbled quietly, "What did you do with him?"

"Who are you?" Minato asked emotionlessly from across the room, arms crossed before him, eyes narrowed to dangerous slits.

"Where is my son?"

"Answer my question first."

"Where. Is. My. Son."

Naruto's father sighed and shook his head. "You really don't understand your predicament, do you? You've been detained. You have half a dozen chakra suppression seals on you right now, and you're currently sitting in a room with four of the most powerful shinobi on the face of the planet. You may as well give it up."

Naruto's mouth twitched in amusement as he watched the Fourth posture. "Is that so?"

Minato took a step forward and frowned at him. "You _do_ know who I am, do you not? Or do I need to spell it out for you?" He looked over his shoulder back at the other two men in the room, who were watching the pseudo-interrogation beside Kushina's bed with a hint of amusement. "Jiraiya, the legendary Sannin? Or maybe his sensei, the longest-serving Hokage to date?" His eyes flickered for the briefest moment, almost in pride. "And you're already familiar with the Nine-Tails' Jinchuuriki. Who just so happens to be my wife."

"No, no, I understand who you are," Naruto shrugged casually, blue eyes bristling with mirth. "I just think you have the numbers wrong." He narrowed his own eyes for a moment in sincerity, leaning forward slightly in his chair. "Five."

Minato blinked and raised an eyebrow. "…Five?"

"You said that four of the strongest shinobi on the planet are in this room right now. But you forgot me. I may not be the best at math, but I _know_ that's five."

This time it was Minato's turn to smile humorlessly. "Oh, I'm sure."

But Naruto could tell from the look in his father's eyes that he wasn't as certain of himself as he was letting on. "Regardless of who we all are," The one-armed man cast a pointed glance at his audience, "You still have yet to answer my question. _Where is he_?"

His eyes flickered in rage for the briefest moment of time. "And I'd be more than willing to give you all a demonstration of why I'm on the list if you don't bring my boy back to me."

Minato sighed again and ran a hand through his hair, turning and pacing back towards the opposite wall of the hospital room in thought. "I promise you he is okay. But that is all I will divulge until you give me more to work with."

With a flash, he was right in front of Naruto, kunai pressed firmly against the man's jugular in an attempt to threaten him, eyes cold and unforgiving. "So. Tell me. Who are you? Really?"

**"Be careful, brat. Remember what we discussed. If this is really the past, then divulging too much information will be bad.** **_Very_ ** **bad. Keep a low profile."**

Naruto mentally rolled his eyes. ' _What, and everything we've done up until this point doesn't count? No, we've already caused enough damage to really muck up the future. If we're gonna do this, we might as well do it big.'_

Still, the Seventh had to agree. The best course of action would be to keep his lips sealed for as long as he could. As much as it pained him to see his parents treat him the way they were.

And he wasn't too keen on having _that_ conversation with his parents.

Not yet, at least.

Honestly, Naruto was surprised that his father hadn't shipped him off to the Interrogations Department immediately following his resealing of the fox when he was lightheaded and vulnerable… but maybe Minato _did_ realize that Naruto was a serious enough threat, and that it didn't truly matter where he was in the Leaf – he'd get what he wanted.

And right now, all he wanted was his son.

Externally, Naruto just sighed and leaned back, completely disregarding the kunai as it lightly dug into the skin on his neck, licking a droplet of blood from his perforated flesh. "You want to know who I am? Fine." He looked from shinobi to shinobi for a moment, as if collecting his thoughts. "I… I suppose the best description for my job is 'politician'. Although even that's pushing it." He let out a small chuckle. "Don't tell anyone I know I said that. If they heard me calling myself that, I'd get chewed out."

"A politician?" Minato questioned out loud, leaning down until he was staring eye-to-eye with his blond doppelganger, kunai still jutting uncomfortably into Naruto's neck. "Explain. Now."

Naruto frowned and looked at the floor in deliberation. "Hmm… well, I deal with civilians on a daily basis. Can't say I'm any good at it, though. My life can be a living hell because of that sometimes." This time, a genuine smirk graced his lips, as he cast an almost knowing glance over Minato's shoulder at Hiruzen.

"Enough with this cryptic question dodging," Minato stated emotionlessly. "So, you're a politician. Alright then. What's your name? Village and nation of origin? Shinobi rank?"

Naruto flushed suddenly, not having thought of that particular line of questioning. He wasn't too keen on revealing _too_ much about himself, even though this man _was_ his father. Things would spiral out of his control, and he'd end up having to spill _everything_ , even when he wasn't so sure of the situation himself.

Something about where they were was rubbing him the wrong way, and he couldn't put his finger on it. Until he could actually sit and _think_ for a moment, he wasn't going to make any brash decisions.

"My name? Oh… well, my name is-"

"Naruto."

The blond man jumped slightly, blinking and casting a glance at the source of voice, about to ask a question of his own.

But Minato beat him to it. "Kushina?"

The red haired woman leaned up further from her place on the bed, the sheets crumpling under her grasp as she maneuvered herself into a comfortable position. "Naruto. That's what the fox called him."

**"Shit."**

' _What was that about keeping a low profile?'_ Naruto smirked, mentally watching his companion grumble profanities to himself.

Then, it struck him. She knew his name.

' _Shit.'_

What else did they know? What else had he already let slip through his fingers?

**"Hmmph. Not so satisfying, is it?"**

"Judging by your reaction," Minato stated, taking a step back, "I take it that _is_ your real name. Interesting."

Naruto sighed. "Well, I suppose it was only a matter of time. My name is Naruto."

The sound of grumbling from the corner drew the amputee's attention to it once again, where he found a slightly confused Jiraiya shaking his head. "I don't understand everyone's fascination with that stupid book…"

The Fourth ignored his sensei and raised an eyebrow, another question on his lips. "Is that it? Don't you have a surname?"

"I… No. No, I don't. It's just Naruto."

"You're a bad liar… _Naruto._ " The kunai was reapplied to his neck, and the pair of foreboding cobalt eyes dug back into his own unforgivingly. "I can see it in your eyes."

Suddenly, Kushina interrupted from the bed, leaning forward from her perch and frowning at the two men. "Wait a second… how did you know the Nine Tails?" Her eyes narrowed when another realization struck her. "And how did it end up in you in the first place?"

Minato blinked, realizing that he had been wondering the same thing. "Those are _excellent_ questions. Questions I'd love to hear the answers to."

A heavy sigh was Naruto's response. "Now _that…_ that's a long story. Maybe in due time, but… not now."

Minato was about to retort when his wife ghosted past him, sheets discarded on the hospital floor as she leapt from the bed and across the room. She nudged her husband out of the way, leaning forward and staring deeply into Naruto's eyes.

Kushina sat like that for a moment, just looking at him, a small frown on her face as she deliberated.

"You're right," she murmured.

Both Minato and Naruto blinked, before the former took a step forward. "Oh?"

The jinchuuriki smirked, pushing off of her knees into a standing position, crossing her arms. "You're right. He shows all of his emotions in his eyes." She cast a small glance in her husband's direction. "Almost like you, sometimes."

She redirected her attention to the man in the chair, who looked slightly shocked at Kushina's observation. Her eyes narrowed again, as if she was trying to make some kind of connection. "Hmm… are you sure I haven't seen you before? Not even in passing? You look really... familiar…"

Naruto blinked a few times in silence, his brow furrowed in surprise, before he slowly shook his head. "I… I don't think so. Not properly, at least."

He was telling the truth in that regard. He had never actually _met_ his mother face-to-face; the one (admittedly small) opportunity he had to talk with her occurred within his own mind, with a relic of her past life. At least with his father, he was able to speak to his departed soul during the Fourth War.

But this was his mother, his _real_ flesh-and-blood mother, looking deep into his sapphire eyes with a pair of startlingly similar violet. He could feel her breath, exhaled gently through her nose, running along the hairs on his neck, sending nervous goosebumps down his arm. Her hair, flowing down past the small of her back, hung around her like a halo of crimson, bangs pulled back by a small blue hairclip on the left side of her face.

He wanted nothing more than to wrap his arms around her just then, just to feel her – to validate his own insecurities. To validate that this was all actually happening.

That this wasn't just some sort of _dream._

But… but something stopped him. _Something_ was _not_ jiving well with him. His memory had certainly been spotty at times, but after the brief encounter with Kushina Uzumaki during the war, he had imprinted her image into his mind, much in the same way a young duckling does with its own mother.

And there was… _something_ … that was off. Something small, but enough to disorientate him. It fed on the doubts building in the back of his mind… the doubts refusing to accept that this was time travel.

Time travel was impossible…

… _wasn't it?_

Naruto leaned away slightly, narrowing his eyes at the woman before him. "Your hairpin."

Kushina blinked, eyebrow raised, as her hand subconsciously went up the side of her face to where her rivers of red were being tamed near her hairline. "Uhh… what about it? Haven't you seen a woman before? We've got to wear a hairpin, or it gets in our eyes, y'know."

His heart leapt into his throat at her verbal tic as he remembered their brief conversation about it all those years ago, but he shoved it back down with a massive burst of self-control. "Your pin. It's on the left."

This time, it was Minato's turn to speak. "What about it? She's always worn her pin like that."

Something about the way his father was holding himself made Naruto slightly more nervous than before. Did he seriously think…?

"O-oh!" Naruto jumped, slamming his back into the chair behind him, moving as far away from his mother as he could, a cold sweat breaking out down his back. "Heh, that's odd. Well, I was just thinking that it'd look better on the right side of your face instead, y'know."

He winced when his own tongue slipped up. It tended to happen when he was rattled… and if there were a more apt definition for his current predicament, he'd eat his Hokage cloak. The less his parents knew, the better – if not for their safety, than the safety of their future child, if his deductive reasoning skills were even slightly on par with a normal person's.

It was pretty easy to tell that he was in the past, now – at least, what looked like the past. The hospital room still had the drab, olive green sheets that had been smeared over the beds of the hospital in the span of time before Tsunade's reign of terror swept throughout the facility, replacing the scratchy wool blankets with newer, more hypoallergenic ones. Judging from the fact that his parents were still alive and his father was already the Fourth, there was a chance he hadn't even been conceived yet – a thought that slightly curdled his stomach.

In the event that this _was_ time travel, which he didn't want to fully consider quite yet, there was a distinct possibility that his very existence in the past would cause irreparable ripples in his world.

He may not even be _born_ in this world.

Still, there was no proof.

And Naruto's mind still kept settling on one very, very frightening, _alternative_ possibility: Tsukuyomi.

Kushina raised an eyebrow at Naruto's hairpin suggestion, before she turned to Minato and nodded.

"I don't know why, but I trust him. He doesn't seem harmful."

Jiraiya scoffed from the corner. "You can't be serious. This man? _This_ man? He nearly took my head off less than an hour ago!"

Hiruzen chortled and rolled his eyes – as much as a man with the poise and dignity he held could. "Jiraiya, I don't believe blaming another man's abilities for your own shortcomings is something I taught you, or your sibling students."

Kushina let out a sharp, shrill laugh at their antics, putting her hands on her hips and taking a deep breath. "Alright! I feel great. What's for lunch?"

Minato blinked, his mouth opening slightly as if to comment. "I… Well, we still need this man to answer some questions. I agree he doesn't _seem_ like too much of a threat, but he knows too much. There are too many things he _shouldn't_ know that he _does_." His eyes returned to Naruto's. "Like the Yamanaka clan's mind communication jutsu. That is one of their signature techniques, and it very rarely leaves the family. How did _you_ come into possession of it?"

Naruto was about to begrudgingly respond with some sort of amalgamation of horseshit, when Kushina 'pshh'ed and rolled her eyes. "Aww, just pass him off to the Yamanaka. They'd have a field day with him. Now, come buy your poor sick wife some ramen."

She batted her eyes at him as much as she could muster in the company of others, and Minato was _just_ about to acquiesce…

…right as a chuunin stumbled into the room, eyes wide, hands clutching a messenger scroll to his chest.

"L-lord Fourth!" he sputtered, short of breath. Judging from the lackadaisical way the man held himself, Naruto could only assume he was a gate guard… one of the two that Izumo and Kotetsu took over for, most likely.

He mentally berated himself for giving in to the idea of time travel once again, but the chuunin's rough whispers broke him out of his self-inflictions.

"Lord Fourth," he panted, "…t-the Mizukage. Our spies have alerted us that the Mizukage has fallen into a coma."

Naruto's heart stopped. He could physically feel it wrenching in his chest, as if he had forgotten something so massively important that the act of simply remembering it would kill him.

The jinchuuriki. The _other_ jinchuuriki.

He didn't remember much about the strange man-child known as Yagura – only that his reign of terror as the Fourth Mizukage began somewhere between the time when Kakashi's teammate, Rin, and Madara had died. He didn't have much of a time frame for those things, considering it was from an era several years before his own, but the fact remained that the Three-Tails certainly had a jinchuuriki when he was born, before reappearing in the oceans of the Land of Water after Yagura's assassination.

If Yagura was still alive, then...

"Oh no," Naruto breathed.

"Don't tell me that you have something to do with this as well," Minato sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose, as he tucked the scroll away in his flak jacket.

The chuunin, still present in the room, then turned to Hiruzen and his student. "Lord Third, Master Jiraiya, you are needed to oversee the repairs to the village. Some of the Uchiha police are getting a little…" the man grasped for the right word for a moment, pausing in his deliberation.

"Too big for their britches?" Jiraiya finished for him with an eyeroll, pushing himself off of the wall with his shoulder. "Alright," he sighed, "Let's go, old man. Might as well make ourselves useful." As the Third merrily nodded and made his way out of the room, Jiraiya cast a knowing glance at Minato. "Do you have everything under control?"

He already knew the answer, but he still felt the need to coddle his prized student.

"I believe so," Minato muttered, eyes returning to Naruto's, narrowing in the process. "Please, assist the villagers in returning to their homes. If you need anything, don't hesitate to summon me."

Jiraiya nodded once, satisfied with his orders, before he turned and winked at Naruto. "Your son's in the courtyard. Got a little sick from the Hiraishin, that's all. He should be fine by now."

Then, he disappeared in a swirl of leaves, sending a cloud of green across the hospital room, coating the bedsheets with vegetation.

Minato's mouth had just began to open again, when the sound of a second shunshin ricocheted off of the walls of the room, this one performed slightly more hastily than the first.

Both the Fourth and his wife turned to watch the ropes that once restrained their strange captive drop to the floor, no longer hindered.

"Shit!" Minato hissed in a rare outward display of rage, his hands clenched at his sides. He began to move to Hiraishin away in pursuit when his wife grasped at his arm, tugging him back to reality.

"Minato, wait!" she began, "I need… I need to talk to you."

"What? That man just disappeared! He could be anywhere by now. I have to go after him. And that's not to mention the fact that he had enough chakra suppression seals on him to take down Madara Uchiha himself. There's no way he should have been able to move his little finger, let alone execute a perfect shunshin like that!"

"Minato…"

The Fourth sighed, and turned to look his wife in the eye, the dark circles on his face giving away just how little sleep he'd gotten in recent hours. "Kushina," he replied, a small smile gracing his lips, before it was replaced with a frown. "That sealing jutsu he used… the one he used to move the Nine-Tails… that was a jutsu of my own invention. I'm certain of it." He sighed deeply, his breaths ragged and confused. "I created it as a chakra transference technique, in the event that… well…" his gaze swept to Kushina's navel, where her seal laid, hidden from view. "If he was able to get ahold of that, there's no telling what he knows-"

"Minato."

"He knows the Yamanaka's jutsu. He knows seals. Hell, he knows the Rasengan! And I could've sworn I saw wind-natured chakra-"

"Minato, I'm pregnant."

* * *

"Dad? Dad! DAD?!"

Boruto yelped as his father appeared before him in the courtyard of the hospital with a flicker of light, scooped him up with his arm, and took off again, all within a matter of seconds. His stomach was already feeling relatively sensitive as it was; he didn't think he could make it through another jostling, but looking at the hardened expression on the Seventh's face was enough to put his nausea to rest.

Naruto shunshined outside of the village walls, in a tree far from the view of the road. With a huff, he set the blond boy down and leaned against the tree's massive trunk, attempting to catch his breath.

For the first in his life, Boruto saw his father _tired._ It was much more than before at the Valley of the End; this time, it was almost like Naruto couldn't move without having to catch his breath first. His eyes were shrouded in dark, cloudy shadows that vastly juxtaposed the unnatural paleness of his skin. His clothes were still in tatters, a sight that still shocked Boruto every time he stole a glance at the man.

And of course, his arm was still missing, sealed in a scroll in Boruto's kunai pouch.

In essence, Boruto realized that his father looked _human;_ exhausted, frazzled, and confused _._

After taking a glance at himself, however, Boruto couldn't honestly say he was faring much better. His own black-and-red jacket was shredded from the waist down, leaving his white undershirt flapping around his chest in the wind unhindered. He grimaced as he flexed the muscles in his leg, trying to shake off the achiness from where a nurse had done the courtesy of healing his broken bone for him. And he could only imagine how terrible his face must've looked, considering he'd just been violently ill.

His father sank down the tree trunk until he was sitting, his breath still slightly uneven, as he began to weave more hand signs.

"Uhh, dad? What are you doing?"

Naruto just winced with a smile and pressed his hand into his chest. "Release."

The distinct sound of disarming seals and the slightly disturbing smell of burning ozone assaulted Boruto's senses as he watched his father take another few gulps of air and sigh in relief.

"Those… those things are seriously awful," he muttered after a few moments, smirking at his son. "Promise to remind me to outlaw chakra suppression seals when we get back."

Boruto just blinked in surprise at the fact his father had just cracked a joke right after rescuing him – at least, what he assumed was a rescue – from those strange shinobi. His mind began to wander as he recalled the past day's proceedings, when two previously unconnected events in his mind linked together.

"Uhh, dad?" he asked, sitting down next to the man with a frown. "Was… was that really the Fourth Hokage?"

There was a brief pause while Naruto simply looked off into the distance, the woods stretching for miles in all directions.

Then, he sighed and nodded. "Yeah. I think so. But… but I don't know. There's still too many questions about all of this."

"B-but I thought the Fourth Hokage was dead!"

Naruto turned and met his son's gaze, then, his mouth smiling but his eyes hollow and sad. "He… he is. Well, he's supposed to be. But that man, whoever he is, is Minato Namikaze, right down to the blood in his veins."

' _How… how is that possible?'_ Boruto mentally questioned. "So… that's my Grandpa…"

Naruto blinked in realization, then reached over and wrapped his arm around his son's shoulders as gently as he could. "Yeah. Imagine having _him_ as a father."

Boruto leaned into his dad's shoulder, whatever insecurities he held within himself evaporating into the wind as it whipped through the trees. "I… I didn't believe it at first, even though he can do the Hiraishin, but…"

He was speaking barely above a whisper, but Naruto just gave a low murmur of agreement and nodded, allowing him to continue.

"A-and when I was outside, the skyline looked totally different…" Boruto continued, kneading his fingers in his lap. "And the Hokage Monument! There were only four heads on the mountain."

Another moment of silence settled over the pair, who simply sat and caught their breath for what seemed like the first time in months.

The blond boy fidgeted slightly under his father's arm as another realization struck him.

He hadn't seen anyone he'd known when they were at the hospital, nor when he was outside with the weird silver-haired man and the nurse. "Dad… where is everyone?" Then, the bigger question manifested itself in his mind. "What's _happening?_ "

Naruto sighed again and squeezed his son's shoulder to comfort him, as the leaves rattled all around them in a cacophony of nature and warmth and _consistency_. The early spring winds continued flickering through the forest without a care, like clockwork, as they did every season.

The world around them may have changed, but at least _that_ hadn't.

With a small smile, Naruto looked down at his rattled son, who had just come off of, quite possibly, the most ridiculously hectic week anyone could have ever experienced. Still, much to Naruto's surprise, he was holding together quite nicely, a feat that reminded him so much of himself when he was in Boruto's shoes.

"No," he breathed, "You're more like Sasuke at that age."

Boruto frowned in confusion and glanced up at his father, who was still looking at him. "Why are you staring at me like that?! You're creeping me out!" He scooted a few inches further from Naruto, eyebrow cocked, as he crossed his arms. "And you didn't answer my question, y'know…"

To the boy's surprise, Naruto just chuckled and shook his head. "No, you're right. I didn't. And I was just thinking about when I was your age."

Boruto's eyes lit up for a moment. ' _Is he actually going to tell me a little bit about his past…?'_

But Naruto's expression hardened over as he changed subjects and began to deliberate some more. "As for your question, I honestly don't know. I can tell you it isn't a coup, that much is certain."

He sighed and ran his hand through his singed hair. "Kami, I need a shower…"

Boruto just smirked. "Yeah. Me too. My clothes are all messed up now."

"Seriously? Have you _looked_ at me recently?"

"Heh… yeah, that's true. It could be worse."

The two simply sat and chuckled to themselves for a moment, finally deflating after moving, constantly, for over thirty-six consecutive hours.

Laying his head back against the tree trunk, Naruto sighed, relaxing his aching neck. "Well, Boruto, what do _you_ think happened?"

The boy blinked in surprise at the question, before his forehead crinkled in thought, his mouth turning downwards into a frown. "Hmm… well, there's people around that aren't supposed to be, the Leaf village is pretty much half the size of what it's supposed to be…" He pursed his lips together, before he sighed and shook his head. "I can only think of one thing, but it's pretty silly, y'know." He rubbed the back of his neck with a small chuckle, hoping his father wouldn't press him any further than that. He didn't like being wrong, and with _this_ particular theory, he was certain that would be the case.

But, much to his chagrin, Naruto nodded. "And?"

"Well…" Boruto grinned sheepishly, looking away from his father's gaze in embarrassment. "It may sound crazy, y'know, but I think we travelled back in time."

The resulting silence was so surreal, Boruto could've heard a pin drop. The forest's dull roar seemed to fade out of existence as he listened intently for his father's laugh, or his admonishment.

But when nothing came, he hesitantly lifted his head to meet Naruto's eyes, for better or for worse.

When he saw nothing but grim acceptance sweeping across his face, Boruto' heart dropped. "Y-you don't…" He let out a laugh – a worried, 'I hope you're just joking about all of this because I sure was' laugh. "Are you serious? Dad, are we… are we back in time?!"

Naruto sighed and shrugged, using his one good hand to dust the debris off of what little remained of his pants. "Honestly? I don't know. But that's my guess too. Stranger things have happened, y'know."

Boruto's eyes widened in absolute shock as he flopped back against the tree trunk, mouth contorting in all sorts of shapes as he tried to put his confused surprise into words. When none immediately came, he just let out a shaky sigh and let his mind wander, eyes darting across the horizon in a dull focus.

After several more moments of silence, Boruto gulped and shook his head to try and clear all of the doomsday situations from his mind. "S-so. We're in the past. I guess it makes sense." He twisted to look at Naruto. "But what about the village? The Chuunin Exams? Mom? Himawari?! They're… they're…"

As Boruto's eyes began to wobble in panic, Naruto reached over and pulled him back to his chest. "Hey. Shh. Calm down. We've got each other. Until we can figure this out, we can watch each other's backs, okay?"

After a few shaky breaths, Boruto nodded a slow nod and let out another strangled sigh. "W-what now, then? Where do we go? How-"

"How do we reverse it? I don't know that either." He brushed the bangs out of Boruto's face as he relaxed, trying to be a pillar of stability for the slightly panicked boy. "But I do know what we have to do for the time being."

"Why are we just sitting here, then?" Boruto frowned.

"Because I know this is the only chance we're going to have to rest for the next few days, and I want to make it count."

His eyes narrowed to slits and he smirked. "Tell me… what do you remember learning about the Village Hidden in the Mist?"

* * *

**"Really, brat?** **_That's_ ** **your master plan?"**

As he sat with his son, Naruto's mind was (primarily) elsewhere, mentally debating what to do next with the assembly of Tailed Beasts he had within him.

"Well, do you have any better ideas?"

Kurama frowned and rolled his eyes, lying down in the sewage water beneath him in a huff. **"This is going to take forever. Running all across this blasted continent of yours like some sort of convoluted reverse scavenger hunt… what do you take us for? Collectibles?"**

The Eight-Tails grumbled something under his breath and let out a rumbling sigh, shaking the foundations of the massive chamber as he did so. **"Frankly, Kurama, I feel like this is the best course of action, considering our other options."**

 **"Other options?"** Shukaku yelped. **"What other options?!"**

 **"Exactly,"** Gyuuki muttered under his breath. **"And unless you all want to stay inside of Naruto for the rest of his life, I suggest you all cooperate. This may not immediately get us back to the present, but it will, at least, assure the lives of our jinchuuriki in this time."**

 **"Our jinchuuriki?!"** Isobu barked, his three tails swinging about behind him in agitation. **"What about our jinchuuriki? What if we don't** ** _want_** **to go back?"**

"Because," Naruto muttered, running his hand through his hair, already fed up with arguing, debatably, to himself, "Your other options are to stay with me, or get shoved into someone random against their will." He cast a disapproving glance at Shukaku, who was about to speak again. "And _no,_ I'm not going to do that either."

 **"You can't possibly expect us to let you coddle us around the Elemental Nations, brat!"** Son Gokuu hissed, slamming his fist into the water. **"That would take ages!"**

"I know," Naruto admitted, rolling his shoulders as the shockwave from the monkey's tantrum slammed into him with a bit more force than he was expecting, "That's why we're going to do it _my_ way."

 **"Hmph,"** Kurama mumbled, rolling his eyes. **"Let me guess. Shadow clones?"**

"Of course."

 **"You are certainly the most predictable unpredictable human I have ever had the misfortune of knowing,"** the giant fox grumbled with a yawn. **"Now hurry up and get going. I want this place to myself again. I haven't gotten a decent nap in ages."**

"To be so lucky," Naruto muttered sarcastically under his breath, before turning to the rest of the beasts with a sigh. "Does that sound okay to you all? I mean, it's all I've got right now, so unless you've got a better idea…"

 **"No, we'll go with your plan,"** Choumei whistled, his winged tails flickering behind him. **"Anything to get me away from my awful siblings would make me the luckiest beetle on the planet."**

"Alright then," Naruto nodded. "First, I'm going to need to know the rough location of each of your former Jinchuuriki. Think back around 40 years ago – where were you at that time?"

 **"O-hohoho!"** Shukaku cackled, his tail thumping into the wall of the sewer in glee. **"I get to see the old sand priest again! Boy, won't that be something! That old bag is made of enough dust to put even me to shame!"**

"Eh… right," Naruto blanched, "So I take it you were in the Hidden Sand. Okay, I can work with that. Matatabi, how about you?"

 **"I believe I had just been sealed into young Yugito Nii,"** the cat beast purred, humming to herself thoughtfully. **"It will be excellent to finally see her again, after all these years. She always was a sweet human."**

"I remember," the blond nodded with a small smile, "And I'll do everything I can to get you back to her. Where in the Land of Lightning is she?"

 **"Oh, most likely in the Hidden Cloud Village,"** the cat cooed, rolling back onto its two tails. **"I'm sure I can find her once we arrive."**

"Good to know. Alright, the rest of you line up; we're on the clock here."

* * *

Boruto was just about to drift off into a dazed sleep when his father eased himself back to his feet, grappling the side of the tree trunk for leverage as he moved.

"Dad?"

Naruto smiled down at his son and offered his hand for support, which Boruto took without a second thought. "We're heading out," he stated, cracking the ache in his neck as his fingers moved into a one handed seal.

Without a second thought, fourteen perfect copies of their creator burst into life in tiny plumes of smoke, each smirking slightly as they recalled their individual purposes. The original Naruto began to pair them off with one another and directed them in various directions, ready to fly off towards the horizon at first .

"What're you doing?" Boruto asked with a frown, not entirely sure what was going on, and all fifteen men froze and turned to look at him.

"That's easy," the original shrugged. "There are nine tailed beasts in the world. I… eh… may have _messed up_ a bit…" he rubbed at the back of his neck with a small chuckle, "...with all of them, but I intend to make things right. So each pair of clones is going off towards one of the beasts. I already took care of the Nine-Tails here in the Leaf, so that leaves eight."

"But if there's eight left, and you're sending pairs…" Boruto began, already sensing where this was going.

"…we're the last pair, yeah," Naruto finished with a smile. "The Fourth Mizukage, Yagura, is currently the jinchuuriki of the Three-Tails, Isobu. We're going to go to him personally, because I have a feeling he's…" the Seventh paused in thought to collect the right arrangement of words, "…well, he's probably going to need our help."

Boruto could tell from the look in his father's eyes that there was more to it than that, but he didn't push the subject any further. "Okay."

Naruto suddenly blinked in realization. "Wait, have you been outside of the village before?"

"Uhh…" Boruto rubbed his arm nonchalantly, "I don't think so. Not on a mission, at least. I've been to the Land of Waves with you and Mom, but that's it, really."

Naruto's face suddenly lit up in a big smile. "Oh, then you're going to enjoy this," he said, patting the boy on the shoulder. "The Land of Water is definitely interesting. Beautiful scenery, too."

Then his expression flatlined. "Wait, if this _is_ the past…"

He sighed and rubbed at his eyes with his hand, trying to stave off the ever-present mental exhaustion that was starting to chip away at his sanity. "Of course. _Of course_ it's the Land of Water."

"What? What's wrong with the Land of Water?"

"Boruto, don't you remember anything from the Academy?" Naruto frowned, eyebrow raised. "The Village of the Bloody Mist? The Kekkei Genkai genocides?"

His eyes narrowed. "Zabuza Momochi?"

Boruto's eyes widened. "W-wait… _the_ Zabuza? The Demon of the Hidden Mist?"

Naruto's eyes went from apprehensive to nostalgic in a flicker of emotion. "Yeah. I'm glad that Shino took my advice, then."

"Huh?"

Naruto turned and looked down at his son, the side of his mouth turned up in a sad smile. "Zabuza Momochi was quite possibly one of the most important people I encountered as a young genin. As a… well, as a tribute, I suppose, I suggested that your sensei, Shino, cover a bit of his life in the Academy, as well as the life of his partner Haku." He coughed into his fist and shrugged. "It may not be important in the grand scheme of things… but his heart was in the right place. In the end, at least. He was a good person, cleansed by the afterlife."

Boruto blinked at the sudden sincerity of his father's words. "Well, we learned about his past 'n' stuff, but that was it. I mean, nothing about how you met him or anything." He looked back up into his father's eyes, a twinkle of excitement in his own. "Wait, so does that mean you fought Zabuza? As a genin?"

Naruto smiled and turned away, glancing back at the clones who were standing around them, listening to the conversation with keen interest. "Yeah. I wasn't much older than you, actually. If at all. Granted, it was Sixth-sensei that did all the heavy lifting, but I got a few punches in." He looked over his shoulder at his son and winked.

"What's that supposed to mean…?" Boruto mumbled with a disturbed frown.

Naruto sighed again. "Regardless, Zabuza's out there right now. As far as I can remember, he was trying to overthrow Yagura's oppressive government, so there's a good chance we'll run into him on the way. I'm going to need you to be on your guard, okay?"

Boruto blinked and nodded, a ferocious look of determination burgeoning behind his eyes. "Got it." Then, he smirked. "If you could take him down at my age, then it'll be no sweat."

Naruto sweatdropped and rubbed the back of his neck. "Hehe… right."

After a bit more back-and-forth with his son, in which the boy realized that Naruto had _not_ , in fact, single handedly taken down the Demon of the Hidden Mist, and that he was _not_ kidding when he said that the Sixth Hokage had done almost all the work, the two began to move again. After a brief nod from the original Naruto, the clones took off in flashes of wind, scattering off towards the four corners of the world in search of jinchuuriki.

Naruto smirked internally when he realized the parallels between himself and his past enemies.

"We should call ourselves Akatsuki," Naruto whispered under his breath with a chuckle.

"Huh?"

"Oh, nothing. Let's get going. We have to get to Yagura soon." He took off into the trees, Boruto close on his heels. "I hate to say it, but with the way things are in the Mist, I think him being in a coma for any longer than he has to be would be pretty bad."

"Why's that?" Boruto blurted, not entirely sure why he asked.

Naruto was quiet for a moment, only the sound of the whistling wind ripping past his ears. "Well, like I said, the Land of Water is in a civil war right now. There's Yagura's group, who wants to exterminate anyone with a bloodline limit, and then there's the rebel group, with people like Zabuza in charge trying to oust Yagura and put someone else in his place."

"Then why the hell are we helping him?!" Boruto scowled in disgust. "Some of my best friends have bloodlines! It doesn't make them any worse of a ninja - or a person, for that matter!"

"I know," Naruto agreed sternly, "But if memory serves, it wasn't Yagura who was doing all of that."

"But I thought you said-"

"Yes," the blond man agreed again, "Yagura was being manipulated, behind the scenes. It made sense, once the facts came to light."

Boruto nodded to himself before pushing off of another tree branch absentmindedly. He was still mulling over all this new information in his head – it was all a little overwhelming.

Was time travel even a thing? He didn't think so – he thought it was just something that happened in video games and movies. But stranger things had happened in the ninja world, there wasn't any doubt in Boruto's mind about that.

Surprisingly, though, Boruto was more excited about one thing in particular: his father was talking to him almost like an _equal_. Like one of his top-tier shinobi. It was… weird, if he was honest, but in an endearing kind of way. It was probably just the current situation that was putting Naruto in that kind of position, and he was defaulting to the persona he knew best when it was called upon, but Boruto wasn't going to complain.

His dad was, for better or for worse, acknowledging him.

And that warmed his heart.

* * *

It was after only ten minutes of movement that Minato appeared before them. Naruto had honestly been expecting it, although it had been his hope that his father would have appeared when he and Boruto were resting back outside of the village.

Still, it startled the hell out of him when he felt the cold embrace of a kunai reapplied to his neck as he landed on a tree branch, just as he was about to push off again.

"Boruto," Naruto called out behind him as he heard the boy approach. "Let's take a break. I believe the Fourth has something he'd like to say."

"Where do you think you're going?" Minato asked plainly, eyes narrowed, white cloak billowing behind him like tapestry across the backdrop of stunning forest green.

Naruto just raised an eyebrow. "That's a remarkably generic question."

"Don't play coy."

The amputee smirked. "Wouldn't dream of it. Now, I'm assuming you're planning on dragging us back to the Leaf for our little escape attempt, am I right?"

Minato sighed, his eyes betraying his emotions once again. "I suppose there's little I can do to stop you, short of killing you where you stand. I'm humble enough to admit when I'm outdone."

"Well, when it comes to speed, you're the only person on this planet I'd call unstoppable," Naruto disagreed, eyes narrowing in resolve. "But regardless, I'm afraid that my son and I need to get to the Land of Water as soon as possible. I know we probably don't look like the most trustworthy people in the world, considering you've only just met us, but it's extremely important that you let us go... Lord Fourth."

Naruto added Minato's title to the end, hoping it'd help the Namikaze understand the disparity of the situation.

When the man sighed again, Naruto was surprised he'd managed to say _anything_ coherent to his father. "Tell me why I should consider and I just might."

The kunai was lifted from his neck, and he felt Boruto land behind him in surprise. Naruto let out a deep breath and frowned at the ground, thinking heavily.

' _I'm the Hokage, and so is he. What would make_ me _want to let a stranger with top-secret techniques go without an escort?'_

He blinked when an idea came to him. "We're going to Yagura, the Fourth Mizukage. With your blessing, I can pass along word that you were the one that authorized the assistance, and hopefully he will see it as an act of kindness sent from an ally. I can only assume what kind of benefits that might have in the long run."

Actually, he didn't _have_ to assume anything, because he was living it in the present – well, the future, at this point.

Time travel was strange.

Minato narrowed his eyes again and hummed in thought. "While I admit that is a rather enticing offer, I'm not so sure. Considering the fact you just sent off an army of clones in every which direction, I'm not entirely sure I can believe that you _are_ going to the Hidden Mist."

"I am," Naruto stated, "And I am also going to the Hidden Cloud, the Hidden Sand, the Hidden Stone, and the Hidden Waterfall. Among other places. But those jobs are for the clones. My son and I are going to speak with the Mizukage personally."

"And then what?"

Now _that_ was a question that Naruto had been tossing around in the back of his head for some time. He wasn't so sure of the answer himself, if he was honest, but he supposed that the best course of action would be to return to the Leaf.

He relayed that sentiment to Minato, who only offered another hum in response.

After several excruciating moments of silence, Minato finally sheathed his kunai and crossed his arms over his flak jacket. "Alright. So long as you promise to return to the village once you are finished. I have many, _many_ questions for you."

Naruto only nodded with a small smile. "This time, I promise I'll explain everything. Well, everything I know."

For the first time since their arrival, Minato smiled – a genuine, heartfelt smile. "Alright then. I'm assuming you're going to do whatever it was you did to Kushina to the Mizukage?"

"Well, that's the plan," Naruto said.

Another smile. "Well, in that case…" he reached into his kunai pouch and procured a spare tri-pronged kunai, "…you should take this. Just in case something goes wrong. Just throw it at the ground and I'll be there."

Naruto smiled. "You must really want to know the answers to those questions."

"More than you can possibly imagine. I doubt I'll get much sleep tonight." Minato's smile faded slowly, and he nodded. "Alright then. Remember: return to the village once you're done. Or I _will_ drag you back myself, if I have to."

With his free hand, Naruto brought his son to his side and held him closely, a pleasant-yet-sad, reminiscent smile on his face. He simply stared at Minato for a few moments, before nodding.

"Of course. I wouldn't have it any other way."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! I appreciate it as always.
> 
> Until next chapter,  
> -Endo


	9. Chapter 9

I wish that I could write a rhyme  
In couplets, pure and plain -  
A verse to turn the hands of time,  
And take away the pain;

I'd pen a line to live and last,  
And hold, for what it's worth -  
Or try to softly spin the past,  
If words could change the earth.

But words are quick, and quickly end,  
And so I'll simply say -  
I'm sorry for the hurt, my friend,  
And innocence astray.

This world is often cruel and wrong,  
But still, I swear above -  
If folks like you are brave and strong,  
There's always hope - and love.

_-Sam Garland_

* * *

A rolling flume of fog descended upon the despondent Village Hidden in the Mist, dark clouds of grey and white peppering the dreary skyline like painful imperfections in an otherwise pristine painting. The winds whipped through the hallowed streets like ribbons, casting a strange, echoing silence across the city. Not a soul was in sight, yet the village still held a melancholic aura that seemed to be so deeply ingrained in the walls and façades of the buildings that it was almost creepy, to an extent.

The Mizukage's palace was the menacing centerpiece, girdled on all sides by tree-riddled rooftops and tall, looming structures that stuck out of the valley like twigs in the sand. The ocean's waves lapped up against the concrete foundations of the outer buildings, forever engaged in a war of attrition with mankind and his attempts to claim the Earth as his own.

Deep beneath the city laid a massive framework of underground tunnels, originally built for evacuation in the event of attack from clans and rival ninja. After many years without war, however, the government of the Hidden Mist converted the aptly-named "Catacombs" into a reasonably-sized web of underground barracks and secret testing facilities, flooding the rest and allowing the relics of the past to rot away beneath the fledgling city.

Luckily for the current Mizukage, however, the Catacombs offered excellent refuge from the trials and tribulations of his daily life.

It also kept him out of the public eye.

Yagura, the Fourth leader of the Hidden Mist Village and jinchuuriki of the Three-Tailed beast, was not exactly someone the village thought highly of. Like most jinchuuriki, Yagura suffered from persecution and belittlement at an early age, and his reclusive habits as a child continued on throughout the rest of his life, even after his shocking election to the seat of Mizukage by the Mist council.

Yagura stayed in the Catacombs for several weeks following _that_ particular announcement.

The village reeled in shock at first, then in anger, then in a bloodthirsty rage. Half the council had been assassinated that night, and ironically enough, it had been Yagura that had to step in to restore order. It just so happened that his display of power was enough to shut up most of his critics, and strike fear into the hearts of his would-be murderers.

Not that they could touch him anyways. If there was one thing Yagura was good at, it was being a shinobi. That was, after all, the reason he took the job - after the dust had settled, of course.

Now, nearly two years later, Yagura still found the dark, damp halls of his suburban dwelling much more inviting than the dew-tipped streets of the village that ridiculed him. Were it not for his most trusted advisor and head councilmember, Kouri, his life would surely have fallen to ruin, wasted away in the bowels of Kirigakure.

Yagura regretted many things in his life – not taming his Tailed Beast sooner, not attempting to force past the hate and bile that society threw at him, not resisting the urge to revel in reclusion like a hawk in the dead of night. He was lonely, which only compounded his inherent desires to remain a silent protector of the village that would sooner pledge fealty to a new leader than truly call Yagura their Mizukage.

Kouri repeatedly stated, in a voice well beyond his years, that respect came with time, and one's name would carry that legacy into the future on the wings of joy – and, in some cases, fear if necessary.

Yagura suspected that Kouri was, in fact, a simple teenager behind that tiger-striped mask. A ninja, no less, but merrily an inexperienced child. Still, it didn't make his claim any less true.

Just more mystery to add to the list of rather… _enigmatic_ mannerisms the shadowy figure exhibited.

So, the Mizukage did his best, every day, to be the hero the village so desperately wished it had. That _was_ , after all, the reason he was chosen as the next bearer of the title – the beast he carried within him, the blessing and the curse, granted him far more potential than most Mist village denizens could ever dream of holding.

And so it was in the Catacombs where Yagura was found, comatose, unresponsive in a crumpled heap in the middle of his personal training room, his daily set of kata cut short by a sudden illness that even the best doctors in the village – at least, the ones willing to actually see him – were unable to diagnose.

Word spread quickly throughout the Mist, and rumors soon developed claiming that the Mizukage had died fighting his own Tailed Beast in a fit of psychotic rage, or that he was finally assassinated by someone that understood _just how evil_ jinchuuriki could be, or that the man-child's strange advisor in the dark cloaks and multi-colored masks had stabbed him in the back overnight.

Strangely, however, it was the rumor that he had simply fallen ill from overtraining himself that spread the quickest. Many suddenly began to see Yagura in a different light, then. Was he hurting himself for the good of the village? Was the Mist that much more important to him than his own wellbeing?

Guilt began to bubble away at the back of most people's minds, and all the while Yagura's legacy grew into a status not too much unlike that of martyr.

As the Mizukage slept dreamlessly in his bed, many feet beneath his village, Kouri grunted in mild amusement at the implications.

Perhaps finally, _finally,_ the good-for-nothing Mist Village had come around. He may not have been the most flawless character, but Yagura was no monster.

Kouri clenched his fists at his side, feeling at a blade beneath his cloak as its handle dug into his skin as he watched the man's chest rise and fall rhythmically. The incident was certainly a double-edged sword: his plans were accelerating at a pace faster than not even he could have ever imagined, but they were all for naught if Yagura would never awaken. He _needed_ the general public supportive of their Mizukage… because what good was a puppet master when the puppet was useless?

The monotonous beeping of Yagura's heart rate monitor ticked away like a clock, counting down, seemingly, to Kouri's inevitable failure. Without Yagura, many of his plans to destabilize the Mist were for naught – and he was showing no signs of waking any time soon.

Worse still, according to the eye he kept hidden beneath the shadows of his mask's lone socket, it seemed that the Three-Tails had disappeared. Perhaps _that_ was the reason behind his condition.

Regardless, to Kouri, the man was now as good as dead.

"My plans will _not_ fail," his deep, baritone voice muttered from behind the porcelain shroud. "I _will_ finish what he started, with or without you."

After a few more moments of deliberation, Kouri made up his mind - it seemed like at least _one_ of the rumors about the Mizukage's fate would hold a modicum of truth after all.

With a flick of his wrist, Yagura's throat slit into two.

As the body drained, Kouri glided down the halls towards the surface of the city, his bloodied kunai already returned to its sheath beneath his clothing.

' _Time for plan B…'_

* * *

When Jiraiya finished his assignment in the village and headed for the Hokage Tower to wait for Minato, he found the Fourth Hokage already sitting at his desk, rapidly scribbling away on several pieces of paper, each spread across the writing surface without a regard for whatever already laid underneath.

Minato looked up from his pen and smiled – a genuine smile, for the first time in what seemed like ages. "Ah, I take it you're finished then, sensei?"

Jiraiya just grumbled in a way that sounded vaguely affirming, before throwing himself down into one of the small oak chairs in front of Minato's desk and rubbing his bloodshot eyes.

"I really, _really_ need to get some sleep," he mumbled to himself, and Minato just murmured in agreement.

After a few more moments of nothing but the sound of a pen scratching away, Jiraiya looked back up at his prized student, observing the man as he worked.

Much to his surprise, the subtle smile from before had refused to budge from the man's face, and it sat pleasantly on his features as he worked…

…and was that a _hum_ Jiraiya was hearing?

"My, my," the Toad Sage smirked, " _Someone's_ in a good mood."

Minato jumped slightly, his pen hovering over the next line on the paper he was currently working through. "Oh?" His smile turned sheepish, and he leaned back in his chair, the joints creaking as he did so. "I didn't think I could honestly feel _any_ emotion other than tiredness at this point." He yawned. "Is tiredness even an emotion?"

"Meh, not my particular area of expertise," Jiraiya shrugged, before he leaned forward onto his palms, elbows propped up on the desk in front of him. "Soooo, spill it. What's got you so happy?" He waggled his eyebrows. "Did you, heh, acquire some 'compensation' for your services this afternoon?"

Minato didn't even bother to humor the man with a response other than an abject sigh. "Come now, sensei. That's just inappropriate. And in regards to your second question, I wouldn't say that _I_ am the one deserving of any credit. That man – Naruto – was the one that did all of the work."

Jiraiya hummed, all business once again. "That's a good point. And I have to say, what he was doing looked an awful lot like something _you_ would've come up with, Minato."

The smile vanished from Minato's face, replaced by a slight scowl. "I know. That's because it _was_. I have no idea how he did it, but he broke into my study and took the jutsu formula for… something I've been working on. But when I went there earlier, there was no sign that the cabinet I kept it in had been opened. The seals I had placed on everything were still intact." He narrowed his eyes. "And to top it all off, he had both the understanding of the jutsu itself and how to work it – enough to pull it off almost effortlessly."

He ran his fingers through his hair, picking out bits of debris as they combed it back. "I could really go for a shower, too, now that I think of it," he muttered to himself, before clearing his throat and folding his hands together across his desk, crumpled paper making way as he leaned his body weight onto them. "The fact that he _knew_ it is cause for alarm in itself, but…" Minato shook his head. "This has got to be premeditated. It's _got_ to be."

Jiraiya shrugged, then smiled. "Well, you'll get the answers as soon as the Torture and Interrogation creeps beat it out of him. I'm sure they're having a field day right now. Man's brain's got to be like raiding a vault."

Minato paused and pursed his lips, the small grimace betraying his otherwise airtight composure.

To a lesser shinobi, it would have gone unnoticed. But this was Jiraiya – one of the only people that had spent enough time around the blond to grow accustomed to his small physical quirks. "Wait, Minato…" he narrowed his eyes. "They _are_ at T &I, are they not?"

Minato sighed, admitting defeat. "No, they're not, sensei."

Jiraiya sputtered in poorly-veiled anger, his eyes wide and disbelieving. "What?! Min-Minato, what the hell were you thin…king…"

As his eyes fixed on Minato's, Jiraiya saw something that he knew all too well; a _gleam_ in his student's eye.

That look.

He had it immediately prior to tweaking the Hiraishin for the final time, when it finally sent him careening across the village in a blast of bright yellow light on its inaugural test run. He had it just before he leapt into battle during the Third Great Shinobi War, which sent him into the history books with the terrifying moniker of the "Yellow Flash." He had it for the many days leading up to his complicated, and ultimately flawless marriage proposal.

It was the Fourth's _thinking_ face.

The kind of face that would stop anyone dead in their tracks, for no reason other than an inherent desire to not interrupt whatever slew of complex planning was going on within that blond-framed head of his. It wasn't Minato's proficiency with the Hiraishin that was so deadly, nor was it the reason – the _true_ reason – he was awarded with a foreboding call sign of his own: one that would send enemy ninja running at just the _hint_ of a gold crop of hair on the horizon.

No. It was all in his wit. And Jiraiya could _see_ the gears moving within the Fourth Hokage's head; twisting, turning, revolving around one another like a well lubricated clock.

Jiraiya paused, a small smile burgeoning across his face. "Oh, I see now. You _planned_ all of this from the start, didn't you?"

Minato's lip turned upwards slightly, his eyebrows narrowed. "Yes, I did." His thumbs danced with one another across the desk as he began to ponder how to put his plans into words, before he sighed and leaned back into his chair slightly.

But Jiraiya beat him to it. "Well then," the man began, throwing an arm over the back of his chair, "Where did you send them?"

"Oh, I didn't send them anywhere. _They_ sent themselves."

Jiraiya raised his eyebrow. He sensed where this was going, but neglected to say anything in favor of his student explaining things himself.

Nodding, Minato continued. "You see, I had a sneaking suspicion that the events that occurred in the Mist in regards to their Mizukage and Kushina were linked somehow. Rumors _have_ been circulating for some time, you know."

"What, of Yagura's jinchuuriki status?" Jiraiya scoffed. "Of course. That's old hat. Have you forgotten already that _I_ was the one that got ahold of that information?"

"Not at all," Minato stated calmly. "However, the fact that the Mizukage is a jinchuuriki, just as Kushina is, set off quite a few alarm bells."

"Hmm," Jiraiya nodded, listening intently. "So what did you do?"

Minato smiled again. "Don't tell me that you'd _seriously_ think I would allow a chuunin into the most secure room in the Leaf Hospital just because of an international crisis. We have systems in place for that. Chains of command. To come to the Hokage first?"

"It's ridiculous," Jiraiya grinned, liking where this was going. The man always loved puzzles – they were challenges. And he _loved_ challenges. His relentless tail-chasing was indicative enough. "So you sent him in. Interesting. I take it you were already made aware of the Mizukage's situation by that point?"

"Of course," Minato nodded. "The scroll came in from your spy network just this morning. I swiped it before you could see it." When Jiraiya frowned, Minato raised a hand in a placating manner. "I didn't do it just to spite you, sensei. I wanted a genuine reaction out of both you and Lord Third for it to be convincing enough."

The Toad Sage snorted. "Please. The way… _Naruto_ holds himself, a cabbage could fall on his head in the boonies of Wind Country and he wouldn't question it at all."

"I wouldn't be so sure," Minato murmured, his chin resting gently on his arm, eyes foggy and unfocused in thought.

A brief silence overtook the Hokage's office, the soft ticking of the wall clock echoing across the room.

"Okay," Jiraiya began again, after realizing that if he didn't speak up soon Minato might remain silent in contemplation for the rest of the evening, "So you sent in a chuunin to act it out."

"Not exactly," Minato admitted. "I sent a clone henged as a Hidden Mist ambassador to the front gates with the scroll when I knew that Naruto would be undergoing questioning." He smiled sheepishly. "I wanted the chuunin on station's reaction to be genuine as well."

Jiraiya nodded, impressed. "Okay. Very interesting. Damn, and it's only been thirty minutes since I left the hospital room." His eyes flickered then, as if he remembered something. "But why Yagura? Why did you send information about _him_ in particular into the room?"

"Two reasons," the Fourth began, shifting slightly in his seat. "One, I wanted to see what Naruto's reaction would be to the news. Two, I was secretly hoping that he would escape to try and fix the situation the same way he helped Kushina. And I was fully aware of the fact he was cooperating only because he was doing the same thing I was: collecting information." The twinkle returned to Minato's eye. "Sure enough, he was gone just as soon as you were."

"He was able to get out of the suppression seals?!" Jiraiya gaped, eyes bulging. "I put no less than half a dozen of those things on him! He shouldn't have been able to take a full breath, let alone escape!"

"He shunshined away," Minato stated, raising an eyebrow. "If that doesn't tell you enough about his strength…"

The Sannin slumped back into his seat. "N-no wonder he almost got me. Those kind of reserves…"

"It was like he didn't even feel it."

"Kami…"

"Indeed," Minato agreed, running a hand through his hair. "Regardless, that wasn't the most surprising thing to me." His eyes glanced at his kunai pouch, which was sitting nonchalantly on his desk. "I approached him and his son, after they'd left the village, and offered them a kunai as a sign of good faith."

Jiraiya nodded. "I'm assuming you tagged them already?"

"Oh, absolutely," Minato smiled. "That was one of the first things I did. So the kunai wasn't necessary in the slightest. Granted, it's much easier to transport to a kunai than an independent marking seal, but either way I could have gotten to them in an instant." His eyes narrowed. "It was just another test."

"Interesting. Did Naruto accept?"

Minato's eyes opened slightly wider. "Surprisingly, he did."

"Even more interesting."

"That wasn't the truly surprising part," Minato admitted. "No. What was truly shocking to me was how heartfelt his acceptance of it was. He treated the kunai like a great gift."

The white-haired man smirked. "So he doesn't think it was just a ploy?"

"Honestly?" the Fourth sighed, "I have no idea. My suspicions are that he is much sharper than he's lead on, but I could be wrong."

Jiraiya hummed in agreement, before rubbing his chin with his fingers absentmindedly. "Well then. What's your plan from here? Are you simply going to ambush them on their way to the Mist? Drag them back, kicking and screaming?"

Minato's lip turned upwards again, and he shook his head. "Sadly, no. I can tell when I've met my match, and that Naruto person is most certainly it. He may not be faster than me, but there is no way I could contain him – at least, not presently. Give me a week and a room full of blank scrolls and I could probably cook something up, but…"

"A week?" Jiraiya snorted. "Kid, I'd wager on two to three days."

"Regardless," the Fourth glided around the implicit compliment with practiced ease, leaping back into his previous line of thought, "The plan isn't to try and stop them. The plan is to gather more information."

The Sannin's eyes twinkled a little. "Oh?"

"I remember something interesting happening right after I arrived at your fight," Minato began, eyes narrowed and unfocused as he reeled in the memory.

Jiraiya interrupted him then - a sheepish, self-deprecating look on his face. "That reminds me, Minato; thanks for stopping that attack back there. I probably could've made it out, but it wouldn't've been pretty. You got me out in the nick of time." His mouth exploded into a massive smile. "I would expect nothing less from my star pupil!"

But the blond was not quite so enthusiastic. In fact, he looked exactly the same – just as thoughtful as before. Except now, his eyes were firmly locked on Jiraiya's. "I'll be honest, sensei. I didn't do anything. My Rasengan were completely powerless against… whatever _that_ thing was. If it wasn't for Naruto's… bout of unconsciousness," he paused in an attempt to find the right phrase, "I don't think that either of us would be here to have this conversation."

Jiraiya paled slightly. If Minato hadn't been able to do anything…

…Naruto was an international liability. There was no beating around the bush about that anymore.

"I see," was all he muttered, eyes focused on the desk between them. Minato _hmm_ 'ed in response.

"Yes. As I said, he knows things he shouldn't. And for that reason, he needs to be stopped." He let out a sharp sigh, before pulling out a scroll from one of the desk's drawers. "I am glad they are going to the Mist, because that means I can divert one of our shinobi from his current mission to intercept and tail them."

Minato unraveled the scroll a few inches, reading the first lines to ensure he had gotten the right one, before he looked up and met Jiraiya in the eyes. "Do you remember after the fight, when I asked him if he was a jinchuuriki?"

"Vaguely," Jiraiya shrugged, but Minato knew the man was just being… _troublesome_ , to borrow a phrase.

"It wasn't so much his response to the question that has me curious, but rather the expression on his face." Minato scrunched his eyebrows together in a way that Kushina would have probably cooed over and sighed. "And if he's anything like me…"

"He wears his emotions like a pair of glasses, yeah," Jiraiya teased, shrugging when Minato frowned at him. "What? It's true. And you know it, too."

"Be that as it may," the Fourth sighed again, "Something tells me that he _is_ a jinchuuriki. The question, then, is of _which_ tailed beast. To the best of my knowledge, all nine had been accounted for – at least, we know they've been sealed. The Hidden Stone's two jinchuuriki have been out on their own for quite some time, so there's a chance one of them may have gotten attacked, or… or died, or…"

He ran both his hands through his hair this time, tugging and pulling in exasperation, as he leaned forward and planted his chin on his desk in front of him. The paper crinkled under the pressure, but Minato didn't care. He was so… so _confused_ , that much was obvious from the look on his face.

"Relax, Minato. No one ever said you had to do _all_ the work."

"I-I know. But still, this is big. This could be what makes or breaks my period in office as Hokage." He looked up at Jiraiya with tired eyes. "I want to make sure I get this right." With another sigh, he leaned back up again, rubbing the exhaustion from his face. "Anyway, I want to be sure of _which_ tailed beast he has within him, so we can decide where to go from here."

"Political bargaining chip?" Jiraiya asked, an eyebrow ever so slightly raised.

Minato frowned. "No… well, not exactly. Like I said before, this is all mostly just information gathering." He paused a moment, thinking to himself, before continuing. "If Naruto _is_ a jinchuuriki," he murmured, back in thought, "That would explain how he was able to heal Kushina. Or, at least, it'd give me a starting point. Tailed beasts are still so unknown right now; anything's possible. The potential for a seal with that power built into it…" When he noticed Jiraiya's gaze still following his, he blinked and shook his head. "The only person I trust enough with this mission, and has the talent to pull it off, is currently on a mission in the Land of Water for clan business, so reassigning him shouldn't be too difficult. And we would get our answers."

Jiraiya hummed in acknowledgement as Minato unraveled the scroll completely, signing the bottom when his sweeping gaze reached it. "Interesting. Who exactly did you have in mind?"

Minato rolled the scroll back up and placed it across his desk for his sensei to grab. He narrowed his eyes.

"Sensei, have you heard of Hiashi Hyuuga?"

* * *

"Let's take a break here, Boruto."

The boy blinked in surprise. They had been running for hours straight, yet he wasn't even slightly tired! Why the hell were they stopping?

His father leapt from the tree branches and down onto the floor, a small earthen crater appearing beneath his feet in the explosive contact.

"One of the clones…" he panted, falling to one of his knees. "Looks like one of the clones made it to the Hidden Stone."

Boruto watched in confusion as his father caught his breath, trying to figure out why his father went from perfectly full of energy to exhausted in the span of seconds. "…Dad? What's wrong?" His worried eyes grew slightly exasperated. "Why… why do you keep doing this? Ever since the Chuunin Exams…"

"Relax," Naruto breathed, falling on his backside and leaning against the trunk of a tree. "This'll all be over with in a second." He winced, then grinned. "At least I won't pass out this time."

"What are you talking about?!" Boruto yelled, his hands moving up into his hair and tugging. "Why… why do you keep speaking so cryptically?!"

Then he, too, collapsed onto the ground, all of his energy faded. "I… I just want to know what's wrong. It's scaring me."

He wasn't looking up, but Boruto could just _feel_ his father's eyes looking at him, shocked. "You're actually worried about me?"

"Yeah. Why wouldn't I be?" His voice faded to just above a whisper. "You're still my dad, y'know."

Apprehensively, the boy looked up from the ground to meet his father's eyes, expecting… well, he wasn't sure _what_ to expect. Regardless, he felt a great urge to look away – anywhere but his father's eyes.

But, as his mother had always told him when he was young and curious, the Seventh Hokage's eyes were like beacons in the night – impossible to lie to, impossible to hate, impossible to shy away from.

"Yeah…" Naruto mumbled, a small smile on his face. "I am. And I should be more honest with you. Especially when we might… we might be stuck here for a while."

Boruto blinked. "Wait, what? You're _sure_ this is time travel, dad?"

The Seventh sighed, shaking his head slightly. "Until I have any better ideas, that's what we're going to go with. You can't help but notice that things are different." He looked back up at his son, a spark in his eyes. "But we have to do _something_. Sitting around _waiting_ for something to happen will get us nowhere, regardless of whether this is time travel or not."

Boruto gulped, nodding his head. "Y-yeah, I guess. This… this is just too weird." He walked over and threw himself on the ground next to his dad, neglecting to lean against the tree and instead lying completely horizontally on the dusty forest floor.

His mind began to wander back to the enigma that was his father – all the questions that he had, all the little things that prodded away at the back of his mind, everything that made him uneasy. The feelings had only increased exponentially after he and his father ended up… wherever _this_ was (Boruto still wasn't _entirely_ convinced), and question after question flickered through his brain like a flash of light in the dark.

_"Your father… is very special."_

Boruto blinked when a long-forgotten memory resurfaced in his mind like a sunken ship in low tide.

_"As for why, that is something that we want to wait until you are older to discuss. It's something that your father wants to wait a while on. It's no big deal, we just want you to be responsible with the information."_

…Responsible? With _what_ information? Was his father really _that_ special?

Boruto shrugged mentally. Well, Naruto WAS the Hokage. He surely had skeletons in his closet.

_"Don't worry. I promise I'll tell you everything. Just not right now, okay?"_

His heart leapt into his throat. Did _now_ count as later? Could…

Could he finally get the answers to the strange questions that had been compounding inside his mind for what seemed like his entire life? Could he finally take a peek into the inner workings of his father's mind? Could he finally see Naruto Uzumaki for who he _really_ was – more than just a Kage; more than just a dad?

Strangely, the back of his throat began to dry up in nervousness, as if his body was reacting abjectly to the idea. Perhaps he had been so set in his previous understanding of his father that learning the truth – the _whole_ truth – would hurt.

Boruto had many constants in his life, but the one that was rooted most deeply into his psyche was the image of his father, generated by his mind from what he _did_ know.

That he fought in the Fourth War. Apparently, he was some sort of war hero. To what extent, Boruto was unsure.

That he was taught by the infamous Kakashi Hatake, the Sixth Hokage and equally noble veteran of the Fourth War. Every time Boruto came near the strange man, he couldn't help but feel uneasy – according to his mother, the man had a dark past. A _very_ dark past.

That he was the son of the Fourth Hokage, the most feared and most legendary shinobi of his generation and the generations that preceded him. He was a god amongst men, a specter in the night, whipping across continents in a blitz of pure talent.

And that was it, really. Boruto wasn't able to pry more out of his teachers or his parents other than that – and, mostly, because it was all already public knowledge in the first place.

But Boruto wanted all the juicy details. He couldn't help it.

Finally, after staring up at the rapidly fading sunlight that peeked out behind the waving treetops for long enough to burn the image into his retinae, he sighed and sat up, his blond hair waving across his face. With a huff, he brushed it out of his eyes, silently praying for an opportunity to take a shower in the somewhat near future, and looked back at his dad, who had simply closed his eyes, his hand resting in his lap.

"Hey, dad?"

The man let out a throaty hum, inviting him to speak.

"Do… do you think I'm ready?"

At the strange question, Naruto raised an eyebrow, the lid of one of his eyes raising along with it. "Hmm? What do you mean?"

The boy sighed, and took to dusting off his shredded pants for what little momentary respite it gave him from his father's wondering gaze. Finally, after a few moments of silence, he looked up and met his dad's line of sight with a feverish intensity.

"Am I ready now? To hear your story?"

Naruto jolted a bit in his seat, not expecting _that_ question. At least, not so soon. That much was obvious from the look on his face.

And… and yet, he found it strangely empowering, to hear his son, in a voice not unlike his own when he was that age, ask with as much authority as he could muster for something that he had been denied his entire life.

"It's one of the never ending cycles," Naruto murmured to himself with a smile, eyes glassy in reminiscence.

"What?"

He looked down at Boruto and shrugged, smile still holding steadfast across his face. "Oh, it's just something that my sensei used to say all the time. _The next generation will always surpass the previous one_."

Boruto blinked, still lost. Once again, his father seemed to have plunged headfirst into a trip down memory lane, leaving his son behind in the dust, trying to figure out what the _hell_ had just happened.

Then, Naruto's eyes sharpened, and he simply nodded with a smile.

"Okay."

"W-what? Really? You're gonna tell me about yourself?"

"Sure. What do you want to know?"

Eyes wide, Boruto frowned in surprise. He'd never gotten that far before. If he was being honest with himself, he'd been expecting his father to shoot him down again, and that would be that.

But this time…

"U-Umm…" he stuttered, not really sure where to begin. His eyes wandered over his father's amused form, looking for a starting point…

…when his gaze swept over the stump that used to be his right arm, and he knew _exactly_ what to ask.

"…What happened to your arm?" Boruto leaned forward, eagerly awaiting the answer. This was it. This was _it!_

Naruto chuckled and looked down at the fragment of the limb that remained, and moved it a little as it to reassure himself that it was still there. "Oh, yeah. I'm sure that probably freaked you out when you saw it earlier, huh?" He reached behind his neck with his good hand and rubbed it in embarrassment. "Sorry about that. Hope I didn't scare you too much."

"Pshh," Boruto scoffed, puffing out his lips and crossing his arms. "That? Scare me? Nah."

"Regardless," Naruto continued, a knowing smile playing at his face. "I lost this arm in a fight. A really tough one." His eyes softened in thought. "But… I gained something better from it. So I don't really see it as a handicap. More like a… necessity, y'know?"

"A fight?" Boruto was immediately enthralled. "What kind of fight? Were you fighting bad ninja? Did they force you to cut your own arm off to get free? Did you use it as a weapon to beat them all up and escape?"

Naruto just looked at him, bewildered, before bursting out into laughter.

"What?! What's so funny, y'know?! I just asked a question!"

The Seventh coughed into his fist a few times to try and overcome his amusement, before he shook his head. "No… no. I didn't have to cut off my own arm."

"Oh." Boruto didn't realize he had leapt to his feet in anticipation until that moment, at which point he threw himself back down onto the ground once again. "Well then how _did_ you lose it?"

Naruto raised an eyebrow. "Have you ever met Sasuke Uchiha?"

"Uchiha?" The blond boy frowned. "You mean… like Sarada's dad? Uncle Sasuke?"

"Yeah."

"Uhh… I don't think so. He's been out of the village for a long time, y'know."

Naruto nodded. "Yeah, I know. I was the one that assigned him to it."

Boruto frowned again. "What, really? Why? All Sarada ever talks about is getting to see her dad again. It's kinda annoying."

Naruto looked down at his son with the eyes of a knowing parent. "He's the best at what I need him for. And in regards to Sarada… well, put yourself in her shoes. Imagine me or your mother, out of the village for months to years on end. You'd probably be excited too." When he saw Boruto about to open his mouth to retort with something that was undoubtedly going to be snarky, he spoke again. "And before you say anything about me being gone all the time, at least I'm still in the village. You still get to see me. Sarada doesn't have that luxury."

Boruto closed his mouth and frowned, crossing his arms again. "Okay, fine. What about Uncle Sasuke, then?" His mind was immediately back in the throngs of an imaginary battle, where his father was battling armies of ninja with nothing but a single kunai and winning. "Was he fighting along with you against some missing nin or something?"

"No," Naruto said, a small frown on his face. "I was fighting him."

Boruto's mind froze. "Wait… what? Isn't… isn't he a Leaf shinobi?"

"He wasn't always," Naruto murmured. "He… he left when we were still kids. Around your age, actually," he added with a grin. "He ran off to be the apprentice of the missing nin Orochimaru."

"Orochimaru? You mean the Sannin?" Boruto gaped. "But I thought he wasn't a missing nin anymore?"

"Ahh, so you _did_ pay attention in school!" Naruto laughed, ruffling his son's hair – much to Boruto's annoyance. "Well, yes, that was true too. But he was still on the run when I was growing up. He returned to the village on his own after the war, but… you know what, I'm getting sidetracked." He shook his head to clear his thoughts and return to the topic at hand. "You wanted to know about my hand, not the history of Orochimaru."

"No, it's okay," Boruto mumbled bashfully. "I don't mind."

"Really?" Naruto blinked. "You want to hear all that stuff?"

Boruto nodded enthusiastically. "Yeah! I've heard most of it before in school, but I didn't know _you_ were involved! That makes it cooler!"

"Oh, well…" Naruto coughed, a bit of pride in his voice. "I wasn't _always_ involved, y'know."

"What happened next?"

Naruto shrugged. "Honestly, there's not much more than that. I spent the better part of my teen years chasing after Sasuke, and when I finally got to him at the end of the Fourth War, he wanted to kill me for standing in the way of his dream."

"His dream?" Boruto gaped. "He wanted to kill you for it?"

"Yeah," Naruto nodded, rubbing the back of his head again, this time with a sigh. "His goal was to unite the world by becoming its one sole enemy." He shook his head, eyes rolling all the while. "Pretty terrible plan, if you asked me. That's why I do the planning, and he goes out and does the snooping."

Much to Naruto's surprise, Boruto snorted at the joke. "Come on, dad. You're a terrible planner, too."

"Yeah, yeah. I know," the man muttered in mock hurt. "I tried to stop him, he fought back, we blew each other's arms off." Naruto shrugged. "That's all there is to it, really."

But the boy was absolutely awestruck. "You… you blew each other's arms off?" he mouthed back, eyes wide. "That's… that's…"

"Awesome?" Naruto supplied with a smile.

"HELL YEAH IT IS! THAT'S SO COOL! MY DAD BLEW OFF HIS ARM TRYING TO KEEP SOMEONE FROM GO-"

The rest came out as a muffled hum, as Naruto clasped his hand around Boruto's mouth and looked at him sternly. "Shh! We don't know who or what's out there right now. Keep it down, alright?"

When Boruto nodded with a shrug, the hand was removed, and an awkward silence descended between the two blonds.

That was, at least, until another question popped into his head.

"Hey… dad? Why were you able to save that red-haired girl? Why did she look so much like those pictures we have of Grandma Kushina and Grandpa Minato? Wait… was that actually Grandma Kushina?! And why are you so tired? And… and why did you explode at the Valley of the End?" As if to emphasize the last question, Boruto shook his previously injured leg around a bit.

Instead of the nonchalant answer Boruto was expecting, like the one offered to the previous barrage of Boruto's questions, Naruto's expression hardened immediately. "You want… to know about that?"

When Boruto nodded profusely, he simply sighed. "I suppose the time was going to have to come eventually."

"The time for what?" Boruto frowned. "I don't know what you're talking about, dad."

After another few moments of silence, Naruto nodded, decision made. "Alright. I'll tell you. But… I'm not going to tell you alone. It's too big for me to explain in just words."

As he began to weave a few hand signs, Naruto chuckled and shook his head. "You know, Ino taught me this jutsu when she was drunk one night a few years ago and trying to show me some… rather provocative memories of her with her husband," he coughed a bit as he remembered, "But I never thought it'd come this in handy."

When he arrived on the last hand seal, Naruto looked his son in the eye. "Alright. Are you sure you want to know?"

When the boy refused to back down, Naruto simply gave a small smile and nodded. "That's my boy. Alright, hold still. This is going to feel weird, but it'll all make sense soon enough." He reached out with his hand, and placed his palm across the boy's forehead.

Before long, Boruto no longer felt planted to the Earth in his own body – instead, he felt like he was floating… like he was _free_. His vision faded to black, his mind began to collapse in on itself, and he felt himself being whisked away, across some unseen medium, until…

" **Hello, brat. Nice to finally meet you."**

* * *

He spotted it before it even crested the horizon, descending upon them like an arrow in the wind. Most men would have flinched at the sight of a rapidly approaching unknown object, but any well-weathered shinobi of Hiashi's particular prowess knew immediately that it was simply a messenger hawk.

"Hoheto. Wait just a moment."

The boy's movements stiffened slightly as he touched down onto a tree branch, where he halted. "Yes, Hiashi-sama?"

Lilac-white eyes narrowed at the horizon. "We have a message… most likely from the Hokage, judging from the heading and speed. We must wait here until it arrives."

"We… we do?" The young Hyuuga blinked and activated his Byakugan, scanning the treeline. "But I don't see anything."

Hiashi nodded, a small smile tugging at his lips. "That is because your Byakugan still has far to go before it is fully matured. That is part of the reason why I asked Lord Hokage to assign you on this mission with me."

"Oh." Hoheto shrugged. "I guess that makes sense."

He jumped when the newly-promoted jounin clasped his shoulder with a _very small_ smile. "Relax, Hoheto. You have far to go, but you have already come a great distance."

The boy nodded once, determination behind his eyes. "Of course, Lord Hiashi. I'll reach chuunin in no time at all."

To his surprise, the Hyuuga man just chuckled and turned away, eyes returning to the horizon. "There is no need to rush. You did, after all, just graduate from the Academy. The Chuunin Exams will always be there. It is up to you to ensure you are prepared enough when the time comes."

"Is that why you chose to bring me along?"

"Of course. This is just a simple diplomatic mission. I could have gone alone, but I want to ensure every member of my clan is as strong as they can be."

The boy seemed to understand, and turned his gaze towards the direction Hiashi was looking.

Several moments of silence descended upon the duo, interrupted only by the occasional gust of wind that would whip through the trees, the cascading sound of bristling leaves and intertwined branches resounding over the densely-packed forests of eastern Fire Country.

"Hiashi-sama, why aren't you a jounin-sensei?" Hoheto suddenly asked, eyes still tracing the skyline for any sign of a bird in flight.

"Hmm?"

"Well…" he scratched his arm in slight embarrassment, likely wishing he had never brought the subject up in the first place. "You're a really good teacher. And you are a good shinobi. You're a jounin now, too. I think you'd be a great instructor."

A smile smile tugged at Hiashi's lips. "Oh? Are you already that desperate to get rid of that Sarutobi fellow?"

"N-no! My sensei is a good teacher too…" Hoheto mumbled. "But… but I still think that you would be a great teacher as well."

More silence, as a thin strip of cloud travelled between the sun and the Earth, casting mammoth shadows across the valley.

"Well…" Hiashi began, "I have other matters to attend to currently." He nodded to himself, his hair whipping across his face following a particularly strong blast of early spring wind. "Perhaps after the wedding. But until then, I will continue my duties as clan head."

"Yes, Hiashi-sama."

The conversation was over.

Finally, after what seemed like hours, a blip on the horizon began to grow, until a massive hawk soared over their heads, a small scroll tucked carefully in a pouch on the beast's leg.

As the bird began to pass them overhead and loop back again, Hiashi let loose a sharp whistle, the sound reverberating for what seemed like miles. The bird immediately began to swoop down toward the treetops, where it landed in a graceful sweeping motion beside the jounin.

With a flick of the wrist, the fastened scroll was removed from the bird's leg.

Hiashi's eyes widened as they made their way down the unfurled scroll, before his brows knotted together across his forehead. "Interesting."

The two shinobi turned to watch as the massive bird took to the skies again with several hefty thrusts of its wings, before it began to glide high into the afternoon sky, back towards its origin.

After the hawk began to slowly fade off into the horizon, Hoheto blinked and turned to look up at his clan leader, who still had a frown of deliberation on his face. "What is it, Hiashi-sama?"

The man narrowed his eyes and began to roll the scroll back up, before he tucked it away inside of his pack. "We have been reassigned."

Hoheho nearly gaped. "W-we got reassigned?!" He echoed. "But… but for what? Is it… is it gonna be dangerous?"

Hiashi only let out a low grumble, which only served to demonstrate his displeasure with the situation. "I do not know. It is certainly unexpected, however. But we will perform this new mission to the best of our abilities. It is all the Hokage asks of us."

"What is it we have to do?"

Hiashi pulsed chakra into his eyes and began to scan the forests around them.

"We have to find two missing-nin. Both blond. A father and son."

* * *

"Shizune! Go get Lady Tsunade!"

"B-but she's in retirement! Surely you can't-"

"I can't do this alone, and I need her, Shizune! Please, just go get her! Lives are at stake here!"

"Okay, but she won't be happy about it-"

" _I'm_ not happy about it! But it's necessary! Please, just hurry!"

The hospital doors clattered closed behind the Fifth's assistant as she jetted out of the building, passing massive crowds of people in her wake.

Immediately, she was replaced by yet another nurse, who nervously plucked at the clipboard in her hands, awaiting initial instructions from her boss.

"You there! With the clipboard! Go draw those curtains. I need the media to climb down out of my ass right now, I can't concentrate."

The nurse gulped at the direct order, turning as white as the sets of curtains she was frantically trying to force over the windows. She squinted as the wave of camera flashes assaulted her retinas, before the fabric finally gave way and snapped across the curtain rods, leaving nothing but the sound of angry reporters and paparazzi banging on the walls and glass.

"Where the hell is that ANBU detail," the lead medic hissed to herself with a scowl as she began to put on a pair of latex gloves, her standard civilian outfit contrasting sharply with the soft pastel scrubs of the nurses that clouded around her like a hive of bees, desperately taking notes and adjusting dials and knobs on the array of machinery that seemed to coat the far walls of the hospital room.

It was easy enough to tell just by _looking_ at Sakura Uchiha that she was in a sour mood – her current apparel notwithstanding. The woman's infamous red dress quickly gained a status in the hospital that had not been seen since the Fifth… and it certainly didn't help that the two kunoichi had terrifyingly similar personality traits when it came to the work that they did.

' _If you saw red, you'd most certainly be seeing more of it by the end of the day_ ,' was the clever remark passed between interns on the weekdays, although _none_ of them held the gall to actually say that to the woman's face. Because the only person that could bring them back from the brink would be Lady Sakura herself… and there were good odds she would be less than willing.

One of the machines across the room began to cry like an infant child, screeching out in a mechanical voice that made half of the nursing staff jump in surprise.

"What is it now!" Sakura shouted, marching over to the computer's monitor.

It didn't take long for the machine to stop making noise.

The hospital doors opened again, and this time it was Temari – much to Sakura's surprise. She didn't have much of a chance to relay her disgruntlement at the intrusion, before the Sand nin began to march to the center of the room, towards the pair of hospital beds that were girdled on all sides by prodding nurses and snaking wiring.

"My brother wants to see him," she said immediately, eyes not moving from the beds. "Can that be arranged?"

"What the… why the hell do people think this is a hotel lobby?" Sakura cried, still picking bits of shattered glass from the side of her fist. "I'm working, Temari! If I don't hurry, then there won't be much of him left for Gaara to see, okay?"

Temari just sighed to herself, crossing her arms as the nurses flowed around her like a rock in a river. She remained mostly silent after that, simply observing the frantic, yet remarkably organized smorgasbord of activity.

Sakura began to lean back over the bedsides once again, her politeness neglected as she forcefully shoved nurses out of her way.

"Temari!" she called again, attention still seemingly locked on whatever was before her. "I need you to go get Lord Sixth. And your husband." Her eyes blistered as she frowned. "And where the hell's Hinata? I could have sworn-"

The door to the hospital room was suddenly blown off its hinges, the poor wooden frame shattering into sizeable chunks as the retired Fifth Hokage made her grand entrance, eyes red with fury.

"What the _hell_ did you do this time?" Tsunade roared, her fists clenched by her sides. "Sakura! What is the meaning of this! Shizune wouldn't tell me… why…"

Her voice tapered off as she caught a glimpse of the two beds.

Almost instantly, her entire demeanor changed. "So what I heard on the news was true, then," she murmured after a tense moment, during which the hospital staff continued to bustle around them.

"Indeed," Temari nodded, arms still crossed.

"What's happening? Are they okay?"

The three kunoichi turned towards the doorway again, as Shikamaru and the Sixth Hokage entered the room, the former with a look of apprehension on his face, the latter a blank expression that was telling enough.

"Well?" Shikamaru pressed, brushing aside a nurse as she jetted past with a blood sample in her hand, heading down the hall. "What's going on?"

"The Chuunin Exams," Kakashi frowned, crossing his arms. "It's always the Chuunin Exams."

Tsunade just narrowed her eyes and frowned. "So it seems."

"Oh, good, you're here," Sakura sighed, wiping some sweat from her brow with her arm as she called across the room. "Temari, go get Hinata instead. I'm sure she's on her way already. Lady Tsunade, I need some assistance with my scans. Could you-"

"Of course," the woman nodded, eyes sharp with razorlike focus as she glided across the room, her heels clacking across the tile. "Where do you need me?"

"Over here, please," Sakura nodded pointedly, indicating the other bed. "Look over him, please. Tell me if there's any new developments."

"What exactly is wrong with them?" Shikamaru frowned, pinching at the beard on his chin in thought. "One minute they're arguing in the middle of the stadium…"

"The next, they're unconscious in the Hokage's office," Kakashi completed. "Do we have any leads? Is this an attack? What's happening?"

"I don't know yet," Shikamaru frowned, "But I've already locked down the village. No one gets in or out until we figure out what's going on. The media's been having a field day… it's been hard enough as it is to coordinate the few shinobi I have without rampant rumors spreading from our every move."

They were interrupted by another round of shrill beeping, and one of the nurses cursed. "Ladies Tsunade and Sakura, the boy is going into VFIB."

"Damn it!" Sakura hissed, marching across the room to the other bed. "I was really hoping I wasn't going to have to do this! Somebody, go get me two chakra stabilizers and support carts."

Tsunade blinked and looked up, her hands faintly glowing a pale green from behind the wall of nurses as they did what they were told, hooking up the machinery just in the nick of time. "Sakura? Surely you don't mean-"

"It's all the chance they've got!" she snapped back, before sighing and rubbing her eye with the back of her gloved hand, the clamoring of the heart rate monitor indicating that a crisis had been averted. "It's… it's all I can do. It's all anyone can do."

"What exactly is happening?" came Kakashi's voice from over the rumble of the army of medical personnel ebbing and flowing around them. "Sakura, what are you doing?"

"It's… it's like they're not _in_ there anymore…" she mumbled to herself, shaking her head. "I just… I just don't understand…"

"Sakura?"

The woman blinked, before turning to look at her old sensei. "I don't know what's happening, okay? It's like they're in a coma… but comatose patients almost always have some sort of measurable brainwave activity. This…" she shook her head. "There's no other way to put it than that they're in a vegetative state. I'm having to concentrate everything I've got to keep them from going braindead for good! But… I can't… there's nothing…"

She sank to her knees, still shaking her head. "This… this is out of my league…" she muttered to herself, even as the rest of the nurses stopped to watch her in abject confusion.

"We have to figure this out," Shikamaru growled. "This is unacceptable. If this was a foreign attack…"

"I highly doubt that," Kakashi interjected. "Still… I would suggest approaching each of the foreign contingencies and 'interviewing' them. If we want to find out what's happening, and fast, that's what must be done."

"Hmm," Shikamaru hummed. "That would definitely be the best course of action."

Then, he froze completely in place, his eyes widening. "Wait… who was the challenger in the arena right before they were found like this?"

Kakashi blinked. "One of those Hidden Sea shinobi. She didn't do anything out of the ordinary… at least from what I saw where I was at. Why do you ask?"

The Nara was just about to comment when the clattering of shoes on tile echoed down the hallway, growing louder and louder, signaling the imminent arrival of another visitor.

The rickety door was quickly cast aside as Hinata Uzumaki burst in, eyes wide in terror.

"W-where are they?! Are they okay?!"

The entire room was silent. Completely and utterly silent – save for the rhythmic beeping of a pair of heart monitors beside two lone beds, situated in the middle of the rather large ICU room in the corner of the Leaf's hospital.

Hinata's heart lurched when she saw Sakura, crouching on the floor before one of the bedsides, shaking her head and muttering to herself.

She shook her own head and began to force her way past the nurses to get a better look at the two figures lying on the beds.

"I'm sorry, Hinata. I've done all I can." Sakura looked up from the ground, eyes rimmed with tears. "There's… there's nothing more I can do."

Hinata approached the beds, her hands shaking as she gently moved the final ring of people out of the way.

Two sets of blond hair were all she saw before she passed out, crumpling to the floor in a petrified heap.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welp. Hope you like plot development! Thanks for reading, and leave a review, if you want to!
> 
> \- Endo


	10. Chapter 10

" **Hello, brat. Nice to finally meet you."**

The words rumbled around the darkness, shaking the ground and echoing against the unseen walls of whatever chamber Boruto now found himself in, alone, without any idea where he was or what was happening.

And he was, indeed, alone.

Completely and totally alone.

He took a tentative step forward, eyes darting every which way for some sign of movement. He froze a few times when his eyes began to play tricks on him, casting the forms of massive beasts and impossible shadows on the intangible surfaces his imagination conjured up.

The air in the room grew colder, the black abyss around him deepening. Boruto kept expecting something to happen – something _more_ to happen, at least – but it seemed like he was trapped in time, the stifling silence holding him hostage in a mysterious place where he could barely see more than three feet in front of him.

He couldn't help but shudder, his eyes wide and fearful.

 _Something_ had made that noise. Called him a brat; almost _sneering_ at him in just words alone.

And it was undoubtedly in this place with him.

A roaring sound, like the winds whipping past tall buildings in the Leaf's financial district during the later summer months, rushed through the chamber, and Boruto suddenly felt sick… _very_ sick. It was like this place was rejecting him…

…or perhaps _he_ was rejecting _it._

With shaky hands, he reached around himself to tug the fragments of his shattered jacket across his frame – a feeble attempt to bring some sort of warmth and familiarity into this place. Which is what he needed right now.

 _Where_ was his father? Just _what_ was going on? This place-

The roaring suddenly stopped – like someone had flipped a switch, and suddenly it was no longer present.

Then, it turned into a laugh.

A dark, chilling, menacing, _bone-liquefying_ laugh.

It sounded like broken glass cascading onto chalkboard, coupled with a dull, baritone hum that sounded almost like a growl more than anything else. And the _smell_ … he almost couldn't describe it. Putrid, wild, and _rotten._

**"He looks just like his father."**

Boruto's eyes, wide with fear, flickered across the blackened landscape, rapidly trying to soak in as much light as they could. From what he could see, it looked almost like he was standing in the middle of a small shallow lake – the fact he was up to his calves in water was indicative enough. Upon further inspection, however, he could see the vague outline of three walls in the distance – although that was it.

He blinked a few more times, straining in the dark to get a better glimpse, when he spotted movement – just a flicker, but most certainly movement – out of the corner of his eye.

What he had previously assumed to be a shadow seemed to have taken a step forward.

Boruto gulped. "H-hello?"

The low rumble began again – and this time, the blond boy had a sickening realization that the sound was most likely the slow, rhythmic breathing of what could only be a _massive_ creature.

"Is… anyone there?" He cursed himself mentally at the feebleness of his voice.

 **"Strange,"** the booming voice echoed from a place almost directly _above_ him, completely disregarding his question as if it hadn't heard it at all. **"The brat's taking longer than I thought he would."**

Another voice 'hmm'ed in agreement, the sound sharp and low… yet in a different pitch than the first. **"Give him time."**

 **"Time is not something we have much of at the moment,"** the first voice retorted, an edge of venom twisting its words past the point of what most would consider to be casual conversation. **"You lot are obnoxious. Especially** ** _you_** **, Gyuuki. Your persistent desire to be the middleman irks me beyond comprehension. The sooner I can rid this place of you in particular, the better."**

 **"Why must you be so infuriatingly stubborn, Kurama?"** the second voice, who Boruto assumed to be the one called Gyuuki, replied smoothly - almost as if this was a regular occurrence. **"Believe you me, I would rather not be in your company for a moment longer than I must. This isn't just** ** _your_** **inconvenience."**

 **"Hmmph,"** the one called Kurama grumbled, before silence overtook the darkness once again, and the only sound Boruto could hear was the thunderous beating of his own heart.

Then, everything changed.

It was like someone had removed a veil from around the sun. Light blitzed across the room in a torrential haze, blinding the boy for the brief moment it took for his mind to register he needn't strain to see anymore.

Boruto blinked rapidly and rubbed at his eyes as they slowly began to readjust to his surroundings…

…and what he saw nearly made his jaw drop to the floor.

His previous assertion that he was standing in the middle of a shallow lake ended up being _slightly_ correct – it all depended on one's definition of lake, Boruto's mind remarked snarkily from somewhere deep in the recesses of his subconscious. Instead, however, he was in the middle of a rather waterlogged building, it seemed – the walls stretching off into more darkness for as far as the eye could see. Massive leaky pipes, most likely the source of the runoff that coated the floor in several inches of water, lined what little of the walls he _could_ see, and everything was cast in a rather grim, murky haze.

Except… except for a pair of massive, golden gates – each running parallel along the two far walls as if they had been cast aside and forgotten. From the state of disrepair the hinges were in, Boruto could only assume it had been a _long_ time since they had moved.

He probably would have been shocked to see the forms of eight massive creatures scattered around the room, watching him with lazy fascination as they moved into the shadows that edged into the light several dozen feet from where he was standing, had his attention not immediately been lured in by the sight of the two _massive_ orange paws that stood before him. Each one _had_ to be twice the size he was across – and they were very nearly as tall as he was.

With a gulp of air, his eyes followed the legs up to a torso, then to a pair of arms…

Had his continence been anything less than ironclad, Boruto would have surely wet himself at the sight that greeted him when he looked up completely.

Less than five feet away from him, eyes red and frightening, leered the colossal head of the Nine-Tailed Fox.

Not just the one he'd seen in pictures, or the one he'd heard about in hushed whispers between ninja on street corners. _That_ Nine-Tailed Fox was simply legend; tales of heroism countering demonic bloodlust countering revenge.

He'd read the stories. He knew that this monster was the reason his father was orphaned (the exact circumstances of which he was still unaware of), he knew that it took the efforts of nearly the entire ninja force of the Leaf at the time to take it down. He knew it was used as a weapon by Madara Uchiha in the early days of the village. And he knew that for centuries before, it roamed the Earth aimlessly, wreaking havoc wherever it went.

But _this_ Nine-Tailed Fox…

 **"Hmm…"** It smirked. **"At least** ** _you_** **don't smell like ramen. That's a nice change of pace."**

"I-I…" Boruto blundered, his mouth opening and closing like a valve, eyes like saucers. "Y-you're…"

When the boy's fight-or-flight instincts began to back him away in shaky terror, the fox laughed. It may have just been a chuckle, but Boruto's heart still lurched in his chest at the sound.

He kept backing away as the fox looked on bemusedly, until he collided with something behind him.

With a yelp, Boruto spun around in an instant, subconsciously settling into the form of the Gentle Fist. If he was going to go down, it was certainly not going to be without a fight.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa!"

When his father's hand clapped down on his wrist just as it was about to make contact, Boruto let out a very pointed sigh of relief, his body slumping forward slightly. "D-Dad?"

Naruto just blinked once or twice as he looked down at his son, before releasing his hand. "Well… that certainly wasn't expected." Then, his mouth twitched upwards ever so slightly. "But I have to say, those were some good reaction times. Konohamaru's certainly been doing a great job teaching you three."

Boruto batted away his father's hand as it made to ruffle his hair. "A-Actually, Grampa Hiashi's been helping me with that," he frowned. "Konohamaru-sensei's been a pretty bad sensei, y'know."

"There's more to being a sensei than just teaching your students cool jutsu." Naruto shrugged. "Hell, Sixth-sensei was late _everywhere we went_ , but you don't see me sleeping in. I can say I learned _that much_ from him."

 **"That's because you sleep at your desk when you think no one's around,"** came the booming voice from behind them, and Boruto immediately jumped and spun on his heel, having momentarily forgotten about the strange room and massive fox. **"Took you long enough to show up."**

"Hey, nobody asked you!" Naruto yelled, shaking his fist in the air. "I had to make sure we were safe first. And you're one to talk, Mister 'I sleep twenty-five hours a day and still complain about being tired all the time'!"

Boruto blinked. Did his father really just... _antagonize_ the Nine-Tails?

 **"Bah,"** the fox grumbled, sliding to the floor in a graceful slump, resting his chin on his front paws. **"You** ** _do_** **realize there's only twenty-four hours in a day, right?"**

"Of course I know that! That was the joke!"

**"Could've fooled me."**

They stared at one another for a tense minute, each one looking like they were about to snap into an explosive rage. Boruto saddled up alongside his father in fear, watching from just behind as the Nine-Tails narrowed his eyes at his father.

Then, out of nowhere, they both broke out into uproarious laughter.

"Ah…" Naruto sighed, wiping a tear from his eye after composing himself. "Never change, you big furry asshole."

Then, much to his surprise, he turned and looked back at Boruto, a smile on his face. "Boruto, I'd like you to meet Kurama, the Nine-Tailed 'Demon' Fox." He raised his lone hand in a mocking gesture at the word 'demon'. "Although as much as he'd deny it, he's really just a big teddy bear."

The fox just rolled his eyes, having not moved an inch. **"Hn. Whatever,** " he grumbled, before settling in for what looked like a long nap.

Boruto just stared.

Then, he turned back to his father, a look of confusion splayed across his face.

"What the HELL IS HAPPENING, DAD?!"

"Oh, he's just trying to look cool," Naruto stated, shaking his head. At the look his son gave him, though, he quickly realized the broader context of the question, and cleared his throat. "Oh, right, sorry." He shrugged. "Welcome to my mindscape."

"Your… mindscape?"

"Yep."

"It's…" Boruto looked around, "…Pretty gross, y'know."

Naruto grimaced, raising a sandaled foot from the water and shaking it off a little in the air. "Yeah, you're telling me. Too bad it takes more than just a snap of the wrist to change the way your mind works, otherwise I'd have done that a long time ago."

Boruto just raised an eyebrow, mouth turned downwards slightly not out of anger or sadness, but out of pure confusion. "So… we're in your mind."

"Yep."

"And… and there's a demon fox in here."

" _The_ demon fox," Naruto corrected.

Boruto stared at him, too tired to be exasperated. " _Why?"_

Strangely, the smile from his father's face evaporated instantaneously, his eyes glossing over in deep thought. "That's… that's a long story."

"I thought that Grandpa Minato killed it?" Boruto cast an apprehensive glance towards the fox, as if the whispered question would set the beast off.

" _Him_ ," Naruto corrected again, before nodding. "Yeah… that's what most people think. At least, people that were born after the Fourth Shinobi War."

 **"Hmph,"** the fox mumbled from his resting place, eyes still closed. **"Still a stupid decision, if you ask me."**

"Yeah, yeah," Naruto muttered under his breath, "So you keep saying."

Boruto raised an eyebrow. "Wait… what decision?"

The Seventh Hokage sighed again, easing himself onto the ground with surprising grace. "That's… a discussion for another time."

After staring at his father for a few tense moments, he huffed and shrugged his shoulders. "Whatever." His eyes flickered back to the fox, eyebrow raised. "So… why is the fox here anyways? Isn't it kinda… odd that he's in your mind? Is he even real?"

Naruto just smirked, and cast a knowing glance at Kurama. "Oh, he's real alright. And he's here because he's always been here. He's been sealed inside of me since the day I was born."

"He… he was... _what?_ "

Naruto decided that it would be best to just rip the bandage off in one fell swoop.

"Boruto, I'm a jinchuuriki."

The next few moments passed by without so much as a whisper – the only sound that could be heard echoing throughout the chamber was the occasional droplet of water colliding with the surface of the 'lake' that ran across the floor. Boruto had frozen; his eyes had clenched up across his forehead, eyes still boring holes into the massive creature across the room.

Kurama snorted, still curled up in a loose ball. **"Smooth. Real smooth, brat."**

"I was never one for subtleties," Naruto murmured in agreement, not entirely paying attention to the fox as he was still watching his son intently. What would the boy's reaction be? Would be leap to his feet and shout? Would he try and attack his father? Would he try and attack _Kurama?_

Naruto was honestly at a loss for what Boruto was going to do, and he was silently dreading the moment the news sunk in enough to draw a reaction.

He took a deep breath, about to speak once again, when his son finally said something.

"So that's the big secret."

His voice was even and controlled, only slightly above a murmur. It was a statement; a declaration.

Naruto just watched him with an empathetic eye, internally surprised at how well the boy had taken the news. "Yeah."

Falling onto his backside across from his father, Boruto leaned forward slightly in thought. "I… I guess that makes sense. After all this time…"

His eyes narrowed, as he watched his father's reflection flicker in the pool beneath him. "…It all makes sense."

He followed Boruto's finger as it traced the faint outline in the water, before the boy frowned again and looked up, casting sidelong glances at the sleeping fox to their left.

"Is… is he cool?"

Naruto had to cough to hide the snort that nearly escaped from his mouth. "Is… is he cool?" He repeated, watching as the boy's expression seemed to light up slightly.

Of all the reactions, _this_ was the one that was furthest down Naruto's list of plausible outcomes. As a matter of fact, he wasn't even sure this was even _on_ the list.

"Uh…" he sputtered, eyebrow raised. "I… I mean, he's…"

 **"Bah,"** Kurama interrupted, flicking one of his tails in amusement, otherwise still unmoving. **"Of course I am."**

Boruto just blinked, watching as the black lips of the demon fox turned upwards at the ends in a smile, revealing a pair of sharp canines. He looked back and forth from his father, who still had that happy grin on his face, and the beast, who was still 'sleeping'.

Then, he started laughing.

It was like all of Boruto's causes of stress had evaporated in an instantaneous burst; he felt lighter than air, finally relieved from all of the tension and worry that had begun to compound in his gut ever since they had 'arrived' in this other world. With a contented sigh, he flopped onto his back, spreading his arms out behind him, splashing onto the surface of the water with a lazy smile. Then, he began to float – just staring off into space, eyes unfocused.

Naruto watched him with an amused smile. "Are… are you, uh, alright over there?"

"We're gonna be okay," Boruto murmured with a grin. "We're gonna be okay."

Naruto just shook his head. "If you say so," he said.

After a few moments of silence, Boruto lifted himself out of the water again, propping himself up with his arms behind him.

"So what now?"

 **"That is an excellent question, young one,"** came the loud purr of a creature off in the shadows.

Boruto immediately shot up, staring at the place where the massive fox was curled, before looking off in the direction from where the voice originated. "Did… did he just… from all the way over-"

 **"No, brat; it wasn't me,"** the fox grumbled, still unmoving.

Boruto spun around, looking up at his father, who had also risen to his feet once again. To his surprise, the man was smiling off in the direction _past_ the fox, looking towards the darkness the cloaked the majority of the room. "Ah, yes. Can you all come out now? Thank you for waiting so patiently."

 **"Hmph. If he can handle the giant orange asshole, I think he'd be fine with the** ** _rest_** **of us,"** a particularly whiny voice bellowed from the opposite direction.

**"This was to respect Naruto's wishes, Shukaku. We weren't sure what the boy's reaction was going to be in the slightest. It may have been best to not reveal us at all."**

Eyes wide, Boruto whirled about in a circle, looking off into the shadows in surprise. "What… who's that? Where are they? Why can't I see them?"

Naruto blinked, before a small smile graced his lips. "Oh. Right, sorry."

He snapped his fingers once, and the rest of the room was immediately bathed in a much more substantial bright glow.

Surrounding them in a rough circle stood eight more massive creatures, each looking like some sort of manifestation of Boruto's childhood nightmares.

And they all had a massive assortment of tails whipping behind them, swirling in the haziness that was his father's mind.

Some looked at him with mild fascination, but the rest seemed to be scrutinizing his father, much to Boruto's surprise.

"Are… Are these…"

"Boruto," the Seventh smiled, turning back to his son. "I'd like you to meet Shukaku, Matatabi, Isobu…" he paused, pointing each out as he named them off, "…Son Gokuu, Kokuou, Saiken… that one there is Choumei, he's Gyuuki..." he pointed at the fox again, "And you've already met Kurama."

Naruto turned to the beasts and smiled, wrapping his good hand around his son's neck and tugging him in for a side-hug. "Everyone, this is my son, Boruto Uzumaki."

"D-dad?" Boruto whispered, eying the massive creatures as they stared back at him. "Are… are these the other tailed beasts?"

"Yep," Naruto smiled. "All nine of them."

"You're… you're the jinchuuriki for _all nine_ of the tailed beasts?!"

 **"Hmph, he wishes, I bet,"** the one now identified as Son Gokuu muttered with a low hum. **"No, young one. We aren't supposed to be here. Well, at least,** ** _most_** **of us."** The monkey-like beast frowned at the fox, who still hadn't moved.

 **"Regardless of our personal feelings on the matter,"** Gyuuki sighed, his level head butting into the conversation, **"We need to talk strategy."**

Naruto nodded. "Well, we're currently working on getting all of you back to your proper hosts in _this_ time, at least… but it's going to be a little while, and it takes a lot out of me whenever I have to do this many sealings in one day."

Boruto blinked. "Wait… what?"

"The beasts aren't supposed to be here," Naruto nodded pointedly at the circle of creatures that surrounded them. "Hell, the only one that's supposed to be sealed in me normally is Kurama. The rest of them… they were all dragged in here for some reason or another whenever we first got here."

"When we first got here…?" Boruto repeated wistfully. "Wait… you mean when we went to that weird cave, and your eyes were glowing and stuff?"

"Exactly." His face frosted over in thought, before he frowned. "Thinking back, I should have really been able to tell that something was wrong when we didn't end up where we were supposed to."

"Huh?"

"That cave," Naruto said, "was discovered by Sixth-sensei a little after the war had ended." He scratched at the back of his head. "It was found when they were carving his face on the monument. We fixed it up, made it a proper training room, and insulated it with chakra suppression seals." He tapped his stomach. "It's where I went to train with Kurama, back when I was still a teenager. I couldn't just do it out in the open, because people would get a bit… eh, nervous." He raised an eyebrow. "Even if it _was_ just pure chakra. It's dense stuff."

"Yeah… I'll say," Boruto mumbled, poking at the numb feeling that still ran through his leg.

"Heh, yeah… sorry, "Naruto said meekly. "After I became Hokage, it became my personal training area. It's one of the most secure and isolated places in the village, so I was pretty sure it would be safe. I went to the cave in the first place because I thought there might have just been something wrong with the seal. It's not really likely, but… still. With the Chuunin Exams going on, you can never be too sure, y'know?" He looked down at Boruto's formerly broken leg with a sad frown. "After I realized the problem was that all _nine_ of these guys were here, I had to make it out of the village, and fast."

Boruto nodded, following along. "So… we went to the Valley of the End?"

"Yeah," Naruto said. "I had to discharge a bunch of their chakra, because it was just too much. Even more than I was expecting, honestly." He looked back to the tailed beasts with a sigh. "It turns out that apparently there's some sort of unwritten law of the Universe that says when two of the same Tailed Beast are in the same world as each other, one overpowers the other, and they combine into one big one." He shook his head. "And apparently I drew the short straw, because they're _all_ in me – all eighteen of them, strictly speaking."

Boruto's eyes went wide. "Wait… so that's why Grandma Kushina was like that? Wasn't she a jinchuuriki too?"

"Well, technically, _is_ ," Naruto corrected. "But yeah. That's why I rushed back to the village when I found out." He looked out at the cavernous wasteland that was the seal room, as if he could see the outside world from within their current surroundings. "And that's why we're out here now. I'd love to sit down and talk to Dad about why all of this is happening, and maybe try and figure out a way to fix it – because he of all people probably could figure something out, but… for now, we gotta fix the stuff we messed up getting here first." He tousled his son's hair with a confident grin. "You up for it?"

For the first time in what Naruto could have sworn had been ages, his son smiled. A proper, genuine smile – like when he had been a little boy. "Hell yeah!"

"Language," Naruto chided, bopping the boy on the head, before turning back to their audience. "Alright then. Here's the plan…"

* * *

Hiashi and Hoheto had been running through the emerald-tipped forests for what seemed like ages, heading in a zigzag pattern that loosely ended at the coast of Fire Country. Hiashi had insisted that in order for their mission to be successful, they were going to need to cover a _lot_ of ground – and _fast_ … that much was obvious by how much he was pushing the poor child to his breaking point.

After an excruciatingly long amount of time, Hiashi finally slowed to normal walking speed, and directed them to a large tree with roots that stood several feet from the ground, cocooning a small area of the forest in a defensible shroud.

"Let us stop and rest," the Hyuuga head said. "You are nearly out of chakra, Hoheto."

"I…" The boy gulped down air, bending over to rest his hands on his knees while he tried to recover enough to form a full sentence. "I know."

"I do apologize; the distance we must travel is far too great, and our target far too fast to warrant an easy journey," Hiashi replied, pulling a small sealing scroll from his bag and seating himself comfortably in the nook the tree provided. "This is an espionage mission… a task we the Hyuuga pride ourselves over above almost everything else." He passed a small current of chakra through the seal's release, and a pair of water bottles and ration bars manifested themselves in his lap. "To be an effective shinobi in our clan, you are going to have to be up to tasks such as these at a moment's notice… such as what just happened."

"Yeah," Hoheto breathed, throwing himself down beside the other root, across from Hiashi. "Yeah, I know. I'll be fine, I promise, Hiashi-sama."

A bottle of water and food suddenly sat in his lap. "Eat that," the jounin said coolly, nodding at the rations. "It will help considerably."

His eyes flickered in what Hoheto could only assume was amusement, but the expression was gone as fast as it had come. "Although… the taste leaves quite a lot to be desired."

Hoheto shrugged, breaking a decent chunk of the bar off into his mouth and chewing ravenously.

Then, he blanched; freezing mid-chew.

This time, Hiashi's smile was completely unhidden, as his genin student quickly began to chase the awful-tasting substance down his throat with the majority of the contents of his water bottle.

"I told you. Regardless, it will help you build strength." As if to prove his point, Hiashi took a sizeable, yet dignified bite out of his own ration bar, grimacing slightly before swallowing it.

They sat in silence for a few moments, each simply enjoying the peace and the rest. After what Hoheto felt was a respectable length of time, he perked his head up and asked the question that had been egging at the back of his mind since they had veered off course earlier in the day.

"Um… where are we, exactly, Hiashi-sama?"

Hiashi nodded, looking down at the boy. "Currently, we are 10 miles away from a small fishing village on the coast."

"Is that where we are heading?" Hoheto asked.

"Indeed it is," Hiashi nodded. "They are most likely undersupplied, and in need of transportation to the Hidden Mist village." He frowned. "If that is truly where they are headed."

"Oh, I see." Hoheto turned back to his unfinished ration bar, satisfied with his answer.

Apparently, the Hyuuga man took that as a sign of preparedness, because he raised to his full height and began to reseal his canteen and the packaging of his rations.

"I suggest you finish that before we leave." He pointed down at the bar in Hoheto's hands. "Which is now. So hurry up."

"Y-yes, Hiashi-sama," Hoheto said, leaping to his feet and cramming the bar into his mouth as he watched his teacher activate his Byakugan and begin scanning the horizon.

"Wait… two blonds," he muttered to himself, his eyes narrowing in concentration. "I've found them. They're in the village, as I suspected."

Hoheto finished choking down his food just as Hiashi leapt for the trees. "Come, Hoheto! We've no time to waste. They will be gone by sundown, that much is certain."

* * *

"Aww, do I _have_ to wear this?"

"Yes, you do, Boruto. Where we're going, it's going to be both wet and cold. And our clothes are shredded."

The blond boy picked at the eggshell-white cloak that was wrapped around him with obvious disgust, frowning at the way it billowed out towards the bottom in such a way that made it quite obvious the garment was _much_ too big for him. "But I liked the way the shredded clothes looked. It was kinda cool, y'know."

Naruto smirked, looking over at his son out of the corner of his eye as they walked at a leisurely pace down the winding gravel path that ended at the coastline just up ahead.

"Just be lucky that we found someone in that village who was willing to sell us these," Naruto said. "Otherwise, we would've been miserable later on down the line." He looked down on himself with a shrug. "It may not be as nice as my official work cloak, but I think it'll do fine for the time being."

Boruto 'hmph'ed, and crossed his arms underneath the fabric.

They continued to walk for another half of a mile or so, before the trees around them slowly started to thin out, and the bitter smell of salt began to drift through the air.

"We're almost there anyways," Naruto said, nodding towards where the path supposedly ended just up ahead. "All we have to do is find someone who is willing to take us across the sea, and we'll have arrived."

Boruto tensed slightly, but otherwise said nothing as they moved onwards.

The path briefly began to climb as they walked, the slight inclination betraying all of the other signs Boruto used to orient himself. If they were approaching the coast of Fire Country, shouldn't they be going _downwards_ instead of up?

His confusion was quickly replaced with awe when they reached the end of the path, which abruptly cut out right at the edge of a very steep, and very tall cliff side.

Far below them, the dull roar of crashing waves echoed up the side of the veritable mountain. The ocean had never looked quite so stunning; Boruto couldn't believe that a sunset could be so awe-inspiringly beautiful. A colorful palette of reds and purples and yellows and oranges painted the water that dipped below the horizon, morphing in the receding sunlight into different shades and hues in a fluctuating phantasm of life.

The winds roared like a steam engine around them, spraying them with a very subtle ocean mist; the taste of salt in Boruto's mouth before had merrily been a drop in the bucket compared to the real thing he now stood before.

"Uhh, I wasn't exactly expecting _that_ ," Naruto stated from beside him, looking down the side of the ledge with a frown. "Well, I guess we're going to have to find a way down, then."

He cracked his neck, turning on his heel and looking back towards the treeline. "Isn't that right… Hiashi Hyuuga?"

For several moments, nothing happened. The wind whipped past him and into the forest, the trees dancing in the evening breeze as nature continued to run its course.

Then, suddenly, a flickering pair of shuriken caught the light, descending upon them with the haste only an experienced ninja could elicit.

Boruto yelped in surprise, but otherwise did nothing to stop the spinning blades as they slammed into their flesh, blood spewing everywhere-

-Before both Naruto and Boruto disappeared in a plume of smoke.

Hiashi blinked from the trees, Byakugan active. He hadn't realized they were clones… how was that possible?

"You're probably wondering how I managed to slip past your eyes," a voice whispered in his ear.

In an instant, Hiashi spun through the air, lashing out with a hasty Gentle Fist strike. When he struck nothing but air, he quickly executed a shunshin, retreating back to where he had told Hoheto to hide while he scouted.

Much to his surprise, he found Hoheto held at knifepoint by the same blond boy from before, as well as his father behind him. The boy was reasonably pale in the face – as if he was quite uncomfortable holding a kunai to someone's neck… and he was staring at Hiashi in what looked like awe, as if the man had grown a second head.

Standing beside him was the other target, the one-armed man… who looked to be the boy's father, if the hair and birthmarks were any indication. He stood there with tired, sunken eyes – and a small smile on his lips.

Whether it was malicious or not had yet to be determined, the Hyuuga jounin thought bitterly.

"Hello, Hiashi. I suspect the Hokage sent you to follow me?"

Hiashi steeled himself, standing up straight with all the dignity that the head of a powerful clan could muster. "The Byakugan is all-seeing. And yet I could not detect your presence." He narrowed his eyes. "How is such a thing possible?"

The blond man, which the Hokage had named "Naruto" in the orders he had received, let out a snort and nearly rolled his eyes. "Please. Hiashi, we both know that's a lie. The Byakugan is as weak as the Sharingan, or the Wood Style, or the Hiraishin, in the sense that if you rely on it too much, you won't get far." He gave another small, knowing smile. "Let's just say… that I've had quite a bit of experience working with and against the Byakugan."

Hiashi sighed. "I see. Well, I won't pretend I know why or how, but I'll just accept that I made a mistake in coming in as close as I did." He raised an eyebrow at Naruto. "Although I had to admit that I was curious to see exactly what it was that had Lord Hokage so worried."

Naruto let out small chuckle. "Worried about me, eh? That's nice of him." He turned to the blond boy, who looked like he was about to starve his fingertips of oxygen with the way he was gripping the kunai at Hoheto's neck. "Alright, you can drop the act, Boruto. They're not going to hurt us."

Boruto visibly deflated, jumping away from the other boy as quickly as he could, eyes wide and worried. "You… you weren't gonna make me kill him… were you, Dad?"

Naruto frowned down at his son, shaking his head slowly and deliberately. "What? No. Of course not."

Hiashi watched as the boy gulped, nodding his head as he stared down at the ground. ' _What an interesting family dynamic. Either the father is rather harsh on the son, or the son has quite the inferiority complex.'_ He raised an eyebrow. _'Perhaps his father has something to do with that as well, yet he's not aware of it.'_

"How can you be so sure that we aren't going to kill you?" Hiashi stated evenly once Hoheto had scrambled back to his side. "You just allowed your primary bargaining chip to slip through your fingers, and you did it on purpose. Are you truly that confident in your abilities?"

"Yes," Naruto said, without any hesitation in his voice, or the nearly indetectable wobble of the vocal cords that usually indicated someone was lying.

' _He truly believes it,'_ Hiashi realized.

"But that's not the point." Naruto maneuvered his hand through the folds of his cloak, running it through his short hair. "I know you aren't going to hurt us because those shuriken you threw were not aimed in such a way that we would die from the injury. And they weren't truly meant to do more than incapacitate us for long enough for you to escape." He smiled. "And I appreciate that. And although the Hyuuga primarily focus on taijutsu as opposed to weapon-based combat, you still used shuriken instead of something much more deadly."

Naruto's eyes flickered to his hands, then back to his face; it was so subtle that Hiashi doubted even the man had realized he had done it. But the Hyuuga man had long since grown accustomed to detecting subtleties in body language such as those, and it stood out to him like a sore thumb.

Internally, Hiashi was reeling. There was a chance, however minute, that this man knew of one of his most ruthless techniques – the Air Palm. It was an incredibly difficult and highly revered jutsu that was passed on through the Main Branch of the clan, and very few outside of the Hyuuga compound's walls even knew it existed.

The Fourth was right. This man was most certainly a worrisome individual indeed.

Naruto just smiled again. "Alright! Let's get going, then. We've got a lot of ground to cover before we can get to the Hidden Mist village. And I want to be there by tomorrow morning."

"You… you're taking us with you?" Hoheto blurted out from beside Hiashi, and instantly recoiled when he realized he'd spoken aloud.

Naruto began to walk from the small clearing, back towards the path. "Of course. That's why I stopped and waited for you to catch up in that village. We might need your eyes in the future."

Hiashi blinked. How had he known…?

"Just what, exactly, do you intend to use us for?" Hiashi said coldly. "I don't particularly revel in the idea of being some sort of missing-nin's puppet for an afternoon."

"Relax," Naruto said, waving him off. "You've got nothing to worry about. We're just running an errand, then heading back to the Leaf. It won't take more than a day or two, if everything goes according to plan."

"What plan is this?"

Naruto stopped, sighing. "Alright, I suppose I should run this by you anyways, if we're going to be working together."

"Who said anything about working together? Aren't we doing this against our wills?" Hiashi asked.

The blond stopped, frowning. "What? Of course not. We're all shinobi of the Hidden Leaf, here. I'm just performing a mission that the Hokage may or may not have permitted us to take." He waved his hand in a placating manner. "Look, there's no hard feelings for the shuriken, or for the hostage thing. Okay?"

Hiashi narrowed his eyes, but said nothing. Naruto took this as a sign of affirmation, and continued moving onwards to the coastline.

"Right! The plan," he suddenly said after a few moments of silence, as the four shinobi walked along at a reasonable pace. "Well, I'm only going to tell you the basics, because some of the details are…" he coughed into his hand, "…well, they're not exactly something even the Hokage's privy to quite yet. But he will be pretty soon.

"We're going to the Hidden Mist Village because their Mizukage is sick," Naruto continued. "And I can help. I'm hoping to run into a couple people I know, and can trust… but we'll see." He narrowed his eyes at the horizon. "My memory's… a bit hazy."

"The Mizukage is sick?" Hiashi asked. "And just how do you know that?"

"He is a jinchuuriki," the blond man answered. "They're all in trouble. And I'm in the process of helping them all right now."

Hiashi blinked at the blunt honesty… or at the blatant lie. He couldn't tell, even with his Byakugan, which was quite off-putting. "I… I see," he said finally, before falling silent again.

Not once did Naruto mention just _how_ he would be 'helping' the Mizukage, nor did he say just who it was he was hoping to encounter in the Mist. From what little Hiashi remembered of the Leaf's spy networks, there were few to no long-term espionage missions in the Land of Water… but by that same token, Hiashi could have simply been left out of the loop for matters of national security. Being a clan head only got you so far in a military dictatorship, after all.

The lack of detail in regards to Naruto's plan was a bit… worrying, to say the least; but Hiashi knew they didn't have much of a choice in the matter. They had failed their mission, and now they were going to face the music.

Hiashi just hoped that things would turn out alright. He missed his wife-to-be.

* * *

"Is that her?"

Ino Yamanaka nodded absentmindedly. "Yeah. That's her."

Flicking the unlit cigarette from one side of his mouth to the other, Shikamaru sighed as he gazed through the one-sided glass. "She doesn't look to be any more than thirteen. Maybe fourteen at the most."

"Age can mean anything, Shikamaru. You should know that by now."

The Nara just sighed, shrugging his shoulders. He always hated being in the bowels of the ANBU headquarters; it made _him_ feel like a prisoner, not the other way around. There was too much concrete, too much grey, too much lingering uneasiness.

"Well, what can you tell me, then?"

"Hmm," Ino muttered in thought, as she averted her attention from the sleeping girl in the cell in front of them to the small clipboard that sat on the metal desk before her, flicking through the first few pages of documentation. "Well, all I have here is her Chuunin Exam registration information."

Shikamaru just raised an eyebrow, silently questioning as to why she had finished talking. It was well known that the Hokage's assistant was quite frequently busy – and this week of all weeks was the furthest from an exception as one could get. Ino sighed and continued, not even having to look up to sense the glare her former teammate gave her.

"Fine, fine. Don't look at me like that. And what's your wife going to say when she finds out you've been smoking again, huh?"

Shikamaru sighed again. "What she doesn't know can't hurt her. And besides…" he plucked the cigarette from his mouth and flicked it aside, "…I'm not actually smoking."

He walked over to the table and grabbed the clipboard out of Ino's hands, much to her dissatisfaction. "Excuse me!"

"You were taking too long. I've got other things I have to take care of, and quickly." He sighed, running a hand down his neck. "You would not _believe_ how difficult it is to move around with the media crawling around up there looking for any kind of information on what's going on. Even more so considering I'm the Hokage's assistant. Right now, they've been broadcasting that Naruto has 'suddenly fallen ill'… and it's a miracle that's all they've found out."

Ino blinked, frowning. She'd known the Nara for long enough to tell when he was flustered… the biggest sign, of course, being that he was speaking more than just in simple grunts. "They don't know about Boruto yet?"

"No, thankfully." Shikamaru turned his attention to the clipboard. "Once school is back in session, though, people are going to start to notice."

"Relax," Ino said softly, crossing her arms and leaning back in her chair, looking up at her old teammate with a small smile. "Everything will work itself out. Naruto's come back from a _lot_ worse, you know that. He's like a cockroach."

"…"

"…What?"

"You realize you just called our Hokage a _cockroach_ , right?"

Ino laughed. "Whatever. He'd probably agree if you told him." She cleared her throat when she realized that Shikamaru's attention was slowly drifting back to the task at hand, and she had to admit she was quite curious to see what would happen next.

"'Three'?" Shikamaru frowned, flipping the page on the clipboard as if to try and find some sort of additional information. "That's her name?"

"It's what she gave us when she arrived," Ino shrugged. "I've heard stranger ones. And they _always_ have interesting backstories."

"You're such a town crier," Shikamaru mumbled, not really paying attention anymore. "She… she doesn't have a rank."

"Yeah, I thought that was odd, too," Ino said. "I asked Sai to see if he knew anything about it at the time, considering he was helping to run the tests. He said that the five Kage had invited her and her team here diplomatically, rather than for promotion."

When Shikamaru looked up, a startled frown on his face, she continued. "I'm not surprised, honestly. I doubt the Hidden Sea has the same ranking system we do. They've been disconnected from our society since…" she scratched her face in thought, "…oh, I don't know, maybe when the Sage of the Six Paths was still kicking? Regardless, there was no easy way to measure how skilled she was, or just what she could do short of a physical evaluation, and the Chuunin Exams happened to line up."

"Yeah, I'm starting to think that was a really bad idea," Shikamaru said, narrowing his eyes. "And it's no surprise that I didn't hear anything about this until just now. Lord Seventh may mean well and good, but sometimes he acts a bit… too hastily. Unranked ninja in a competition for high-level genin? What was he thinking?"

"Pshh," Ino rolled her eyes. "The man's got a better track record than the rest of us combined. And his heart's in the right place. That's all that matters in the end, I think."

"Hmph," Shikamaru grunted, somewhat back to his old self. "That's not how you run a village." He scratched at his beard, looking back down at the clipboard. "So what can you tell me about this 'Three'?"

"Not much, really. She's very much calm and observant… which is totally understandable considering the fact this is the first place she's ever been that's not her village." The Yamanaka leaned forward, turning to the one-sided glass again, matching Shikamaru's gaze.

The girl was certainly one of the strangest looking she had seen… and that was saying something, with the more… bizarre fashion trends that tended to drift through the Leaf like a strong wind. For one thing, her skin was a pale, almost sickly white – a very stark contrast to the warm coffee coloring her two teammates and 'jounin sensei' had.

And she was bald. Naturally, it seemed.

Moreso, the rest of "Team Hidden Sea" treated her with a fragility that indicated they were there more for her protection than they were for their own involvement in the exams, which was surprising to Ino when she met with them earlier in the day. When they had learned of Three's… _incarceration_ , they had acted in poorly restrained terror. The girl obviously meant something to them, maybe more than what they had let on.

When she relayed the revelation to Shikamaru, he nodded. "Hmm. Interesting." He turned to the window again, folding his hands into his pockets, and simply sat and watched the unconscious girl's breathing.

Then, after moment, he began again. "Who is her father? Mother? What positions did they hold in their village?"

Ino raised an eyebrow. "What, are you seriously thinking of using her as a political bargaining chip? Shika, she's just a girl. Sure, she made a mistake, but I doubt it was on purpose-"

"Our Hokage is _incapacitated!_ " Shikamaru growled, turning to give her a patronizing glare. "This is a _national emergency_ now, Ino. I don't have time to listen to your troublesome sanctimoniousness."

"Shika, calm down, seriously," Ino said with wide eyes. "I wasn't suggesting we just _let her go_ or something-"

"When she wakes up, I want you to interrogate her. Get as much information about what happened as you can. Techniques, kekkai genkai, that sort of thing."

Ino blanched. "Uhh, you _know_ that's not part of my job-"

He narrowed his eyes, pulled another cigarette from his packet pocket, and immediately began to gnaw on the end. Then, he just sighed, slumping forward a bit and leaning against the wall. "I'm sorry. It's… it's just been a long week. I haven't been home for almost a three days now."

Ino nodded in understanding. "That long, huh?"

"Yeah," he sighed, pulling up the second chair and sitting down, pointing it towards the glass. "Temari's been out helping me run errands, because she doesn't get stopped by reporters every thirty feet. So I don't even know what Shikadai's been up to. Probably nothing good, knowing our kids."

"Pshh, maybe _your_ kid. _Mine_ 's nothing but perfect."

Shikamaru just looked at her.

"Ehh, okay, fine, maybe not _all_ that perfect. But Inojin _does_ try."

"He's got you for a mother and Sai for a father," the Nara said with a straight face. "Kami help that poor kid."

Ino rolled her eyes, and batted the air with her hand. "Oh, please. Out of our group, I think I came away just fine."

Shikamaru 'hmmph'ed with a small smile, reclining in his chair slightly. It had been a while since he could just sit and _talk_ , and he realized more now than ever that he needed a simple distraction from the everyday smorgasbord that was his job. "I feel like I can say the same thing. Naruto, though…"

Ino whistled. "Yeaaaah. He and Hinata've got their hands full with those two. Boruto in particular."

"He's certainly troublesome, but he's acting the same way his father did when he was his age." Shikamaru played with the cigarette in his mouth thoughtfully. "Although he's certainly more angsty than Naruto was when he was a genin."

"He's got the whole 'doom and gloom' thing down pretty well, yeah," Ino snorted. "Reminds me more of Sasuke sometimes."

Shikamaru nodded. "I just hope he and his father are going to be okay. Were it not for Sakura, they might not have made it," he said. "And once the media finds out that the Fifth came out of retirement to help them, things will get infinitely more difficult."

"Yeah," Ino mumbled, the sobering thoughts breaking her out of her reverie far faster than she would have liked. "Well, I'll see what I can do with the girl, then."

"Thank you, Ino. I just need to know if she came here with malicious intentions or not. If that's the case, then things are bound to get really ugly, real quick." Shikamaru gave her a tentative smile, then rose from his chair. "Well, I've got to go make a press release." He rubbed at his eyes with a sigh, moving towards the door at a slow, dejected pace. "This has all been such a drag…"

"I haven't heard you say _that_ in a _long_ time."

Shikamaru just warily looked over his shoulder at his teammate as he made his way through the door. "Yeah, I know. Don't tell Temari. You know how much she hates it."

* * *

When Three awoke, casting aside the blanket of sleep for the blurry haze of morning grogginess, she fully expected to still be in her assigned quarters, reflecting on her apparent victory in the Chuunin Exams the day prior.

Instead, she found herself tied to a chair.

It was… startling, to say the least. This was the first time she had woken up in such a… _unique_ environment.

With a bemused frown, she twisted her neck to get a better look at the room she was currently alone in, secured to the cold metal seat with a rather tight set of ropes.

The room was relatively basic in design; the walls looked to be made of the strange 'concrete' material that she had seen all across the village the weeks prior while participating in the exams. The door was of metal composition as well… and it, too, was painted a dull, boring gray. A single light source hung overhead, casting long shadows onto the walls and creating an overarching sense of dread that Three just couldn't seem to shake. Most notably, however, was the massive sheet of black glass that was mounted in the wall across from her, as if it was silently judging her every move.

Was she a prisoner?

Three attempted to arch her body further to get a better look at her surroundings, but the ropes that bound her began to dig painfully into her skin once she found their limitations of mobility.

With a wince, she instead began to look over herself for any damage. After assessing that all of her limbs were, indeed, still intact, she let out a small sigh of relief. Her clothes had been swapped out for something just as gray as her surroundings, but from what she could see, everything seemed to be in working order.

After the dull warmth of sleep began to finally wear away, she couldn't help but realize just how cold it was in her strange cell. Without thinking too much of it, she began to attempt to channel some chakra to her toes to try and warm them up – standard operating procedure for someone who was far too experienced with the harsh winter climates in the mountains of the Hidden Sea village.

A searing pain shot up her spine, and she gasped in surprise.

Well, then. That proved her previous assertion that she was, indeed, a prisoner.

But why?

Her mind couldn't help but gravitate to one lone thought: what if her village had brought her back in the dead of night as punishment for defying their orders? Why else, then, would she be tied up in such a way? Sure, they had allowed her to attend the Exams under the watchful eye of her 'team', but there had been many that had had their reservations about seeing her off in the first place.

Three frowned to herself. She didn't care. There was a world out there to explore, and she certainly didn't plan on spending it glued to the ground like her grandfather. Destiny be damned.

She was about to make an effort to look behind her again, when the door to her cell began to make a series of subtle clicking noises, before swinging open silently.

Three felt her heart rate increase subtly in her chest. This was it, then. It was probably going to be one of the elders, sent to patronize her, and to ensure that she had been sufficiently scared as a result of this little 'demonstration'.

Instead, a slender blond woman made her way through the doorway, a clipboard in one hand. In the other was another metal chair, similar in design to the one she was currently sitting in, which she dragged along as she moved to the middle of the room.

The door clicked shut behind her.

"Well then," the woman said with a sigh, positioning the chair directly in front of her and gently settling herself down in it. "So you're awake."

Three was reeling internally. What was going on? Who was this person?

Was… was she still in the Hidden Leaf village?

"I…" Three began, before an awful dry tickle assaulted her throat, sending her into a fit of hacking coughs.

"Relax," the woman said softly. "You've been unconscious for a while. Your throat's probably pretty dry."

Three just nodded, swallowing deeply after finally getting her breathing back under control. She cleared her throat just to be sure, then finally responded. "Who… are you?"

"Ah! Right. Sorry. I don't do these very often," the woman smiled, setting the clipboard down in her lap. "My name is Ino Yamanaka."

Three blinked. That had been the last name of one of the boys she had to fight in the Chuunin Exams.

Her heart stopped.

Oh no. She didn't know what had happened after she passed out. Had she killed someone? Was this woman here to punish her for killing her son?

She suddenly felt _very_ queasy. Maybe the elders had been right. Maybe she should have just stayed in the village. Maybe she should have just kept to herself, instead of demanding to be allowed to attend the Chuunin Exams. Maybe she should have asked her grandfather for guidance… not that she'd expect an answer.

"Hey, hey, whoa," Ino said, touching her shoulder comfortingly. "Calm down. You're starting to hyperventilate." When her eyes met those of the blond woman's, Ino smiled. "I haven't even started asking questions yet."

Somehow, that didn't reassure Three one bit.

"Let's start with your name," Ino began, looking down at her clipboard. "Who are you?"

"I… I am called Three," she said quietly, staring at the ground between her restrained legs.

"Three…?" Ino said, drawing out the word as if she was expecting something more.

"It is just Three."

The woman blinked, before shrugging, pulling a pen from her clothes, and jotting down a note on the clipboard. "Okay. That's a start, at least." She looked back up again. "Do you know why you're here?"

Three's heart began to pound again. "I… I do not."

She saw a flicker of doubt flash across the woman's face, but it was quickly replaced by a sweet smile a moment later. "Okay. Interesting."

More scribbling on the clipboard.

"Why…" Three cleared her throat, "…why _am_ I here? Where am I?"

Ino looked up slowly, surprised by the sudden question. "You're currently in a level three detention cell in ANBU headquarters. Your friends and teammates are all fine, but they have also been asked to remain under custody for the time being."

Three froze. ANBU? Those strange masked ninja that she saw everywhere she looked?

"I'm… I'm still in the Leaf?"

Ino blinked. "You were expecting to be somewhere else?"

Three scrunched her hairless eyebrows across her forehead, nodding fervently. "Did my village choose to allow you to punish me in their stead?"

"Umm…" Ino coughed into her hand, "I don't plan on doing any punishing today, unless it's necessitated. But I don't think that'll be necessary, so long as you keep answering my questions… okay?"

Three frowned in confusion, but nodded nonetheless.

"What is the last thing you remember?"

Three looked back up at Ino's eyes in surprise. "I… I don't…"

"Take your time," the blonde said with a wave of her hand, as she leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms over her chest, just _watching_.

"The… the last thing I remember…?"

_She was losing. Badly._

_The blond genin was incredibly talented – he kept vanishing in puffs of brilliant white smoke, only to be replaced by another replica of himself that would continue to deal significant amounts of damage before she finally managed to make a connection with her fist._

_The elders always said she was less talented in martial arts. This competition, it seemed, only proved their assertation._

_Despite that, however, she felt the need to prove them wrong. It was a strange feeling – one of self-pride, mingled in the back of her mind with the sickening feeling of worry that she wouldn't be able to do it after all._

_Maybe it was her stubbornness that kept her standing after a barrage like that… even as the massive crowd around them cheered and roared with each of the blond's punches._

_Another eternity passed by, to the point where all she could think of was how bright the sun was, how warm it felt on her frail skin –_

_-how much it reminded her of home._

_As the boy began another assault, a warm, bubbling feeling began to crawl its way from her stomach up her throat, up into her mind._

_Home._

_She could feel it – they said that it was what made her special. Her connection with the village. Her peers. Her grandfather._

_She vaguely watched from the corner of her eye as her opponent began to charge up some sort of orb of chakra in the palm of his hand, swirling and wobbling wildly as he pumped more and more power into the technique._

_Then, suddenly, the Hokage was there – he'd grabbed the boy's wrist and…_

_Her head was swimming now. It was loud… and bright… all she wanted was to be alone. For the yelling and bickering of the two strange blond men to just_ stop _–_

_She blinked, the feeling in her mind growing more and more intense – like a sharp, painful headache, just behind her eyes, without the pain. Just a pressure – one that was quickly making it harder and harder to concentrate._

_The vague outline of seven faces on the mountain behind the father and son suddenly caught her eye. The fourth from the left, situated slightly below the rest for some reason, fascinated her._

_A drunken smile crossed her face as she noted his hair was shaped similarly to that of her opponent's – somewhat spiky, unruly, and all over the place._

_Then, everything stopped. Time, space, light – her echoing heartbeat thundered between her ears as the pressure simply became too much –_

Ino yelped when the girl's nostrils suddenly began to bleed, and her eyes rolled into the back of her head.

"I need a medic in here!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ugh - I thought I had set everything up to post chapters automagically once a week. Apparently that's not a thing. How did I even think that was a thing?
> 
> So once again I am super behind! My apologies.
> 
> ANYWAYS - has anyone else noticed that most of my chapters tend to end with people passing out? I realized that after finishing this one.
> 
> I'll see you next chapter! As they say in Canada - "Peace oot".  
> -Endo


	11. Chapter 11

When Minato returned home that evening, there was no fanfare.

No lights, no sounds or smells of Kushina cooking something up for dinner, no warm embrace.

The place felt… _eerie_.

The door clicked shut behind him, and Minato had to blink once or twice to adjust to the darkness. ' _This is odd,'_ Minato thought to himself with a small frown, instantly on his guard. ' _Kushina always leaves this place brighter than the Sun.'_

He silently eased himself out of his sandals, piling them neatly in the corner, next to his wife's, which made him smile brilliantly.

' _So she_ is _home.'_

He walked down the hallway, his dull footsteps reverberating off the walls. Shadows danced through the windows, the outlines of trees waving in the wind painting splotches of black on a canvas of moonlight.

It had been a _long_ day.

It was like a perfect storm of events. First he learned of the Mizukage's incapacitation, while waiting in Kushina's hospital room for some sort of sign from Jiraiya. Then came the run-in with the now-infamous Naruto and his son, whose escape still baffled him to the point where his head hurt if he thought about it too much.

Then came the biggest news of the day.

"Kushina?" he called out into the darkness, listening intently as the floorboards creaked and moaned under his footsteps.

No response – although he _did_ hear a small cough coming from the kitchen.

When he rounded the corner, he found her – sitting alone, in the dark, a mug of cold tea cupped between her hands.

"Kushina?" he asked again, a seed of worry suddenly taking root inside of his chest, all of his excitement and happiness extinguished in an instant. "Are you okay?" He flipped the lightswitch, and the florescent lighting in their kitchen clicked and hummed to life. "Have you been sitting in the dark this whole time?"

Silence. Minato took a moment to just look at her, his eyebrows furrowed across his forehead in confusion. Her own face was as blank as stone, her unfocused eyes burrowing an unseen hole in the table before her.

"No."

He cracked a small smile. "Then why are you?"

Kushina blinked, her eyes moving up to look out the window above their sink, an almost bored frown on her face. "Oh. It wasn't dark when I sat down."

Minato frowned, making his way towards the chair next to his wife. The sound of the wooden legs grinding on the tile floor made him wince slightly, but he ignored it and settled down in it, steepling his hands together across the tabletop before him.

"Okay. What's wrong?"

Up close, he could see just how fatigued Kushina looked. Massive bags sat under her eyes, hung across her cheeks from one side of her face to the other. Her normally fiery violet eyes were now a dull grey, still unmoved from the kitchen table. Minato couldn't tell if it was because of the artificial light in the room, or if it was because of something… else.

When she didn't answer in her usual upbeat, fiery spirit – either in excitement or in rage – Minato began to grow more and more nervous.

So he coped with it how he normally did – by changing the subject.

"That missing-nin Naruto and his son ended up escaping earlier today," he noted absently, his hands now cupping one another, elbows perched upon the edges of the table. "I decided to let them go. Regardless of who they actually hail to, we are both on the same side right now. And there's a chance that the events in the Mist, if true, can lead to a strengthening between our two nations."

When she didn't respond, he continued. "I don't really know what it is they're up to, exactly, but part of me thinks that they're on our side. I don't know why, I just do."

When she _still_ didn't respond, he fought hard to resist dropping to his knees and begging her to explain what was going on. Instead, he began to ramble about nothing in particular, his mind frantically trying to fill the gaps in between his thoughts, lest his anxiety take root there instead.

"You know, I think Jiraiya is about to start work on his next novel! I keep trying to get him to write something similar to "Tales of a Gutsy Shinobi", but he's not having any of it. In fact, he seems pretty adamant about the fact that his… ehm… _adult_ literature sells more. I'm not so sure, though."

He trailed off, not exactly sure where it was he was going in the first place. Instead of more words, a small sigh slipped past his lips, and he moved a hand through his hair, feeling the oily texture between his fingertips that signified a long, tiresome workday.

His eyes closed for a moment as he tried to compose himself; when they opened, he turned to watch Kushina again.

To his surprise, she was shaking.

It was barely noticeable. But Minato could tell, simply by the way the liquid in her cup rippled ever so slightly between her hands.

He froze, watching her face contorted into some sort of strange amalgamation of all sorts of different expressions, combined into one. It was almost as if she was trying to switch between faces too quickly, to the point where it was impossible to go from one to the other fast enough.

Finally, he had enough. If she was this upset, this _angry_ , it was only making things worse for her to try diversionary tactics.

He opened his mouth, and blurted the first thing that came to mind.

"I'm sorry!"

"Minato, I'm sorry!"

They both froze.

Kushina's face was now level with his, tear-brimmed eyes staring into his face with a look of guilt and shame and some other unexplainable expression that shook Minato to the bone with guilt of his own.

"You? _You're_ sorry?" Minato said, mouth agast.

"I've… I've been selfish," she began, talking quickly, as if she was afraid her throat would close up before she had the chance to say what she wanted to say. "You have this new job, and so much more responsibility now than you ever did before, and I'm being selfish. You can't… you can't just put me on a pedestal above everyone else!" She reached up and wiped her eyes, sniffling. "I was upset at you first, but now I'm just upset at myself, y'know."

Minato blinked. " _What?_ No! If anything, it's me who should be sorry! I… I blew you off earlier… and that was a mistake. A big mistake."

He winced as the memory flashed through his mind.

_"Minato, I'm pregnant."_

_Minato froze, all of his thoughts of Naruto and Boruto evaporating from his mind in an instant. With just three words, she had managed to steal his complete attention – and for a Kage, very little had the power over him to do that._

_"I… I…"_

_Kushina just smiled, brushing the hospital gown over her stomach flat. "The doctors say it's too early to tell, but… I think it's a boy."_

_"You mean…"_

_"Yes. You're going to be a father, Minato."_

_"I'm… I'm going to be a father?"_

_Kushina just smiled._

_A huge smile burst across Minato's face, and he let out a sharp laugh. "I'm going to be a father!"_

_He swept her up in a massive hug, repeating the same thing over and over again as he twirled her around the room._

_"I'm gonna be a dad, I'm gonna be a dad, I'm gonna be a dad-"_

_"Minato, put me down or I'm gonna end up going through the wall!"_

_The Fourth froze, then grinned sheepishly. When Kushina returned to her feet, she put her hands on her hips to chastise him, but in the end just shook her head and sighed, looking down at her as-yet-distended belly._

_"This… this is great," Minato said, smile still on his face, as he paced across the room. "We've gotta go get baby stuff, and pick out a room in the house… and figure out what color to paint it! And…"_

_He froze, his grin faltering. "And… and we've got to keep him safe."_

_"Minato?" Kushina asked, eyebrows raised at the sudden change of thought._

_"I've… I've got to go take care of this," Minato said carefully, the smile returning – although slightly more strained now than before. "I promise we will talk about this when I get home tonight. But… but if I don't figure out what's going on, and fast… people might be seriously hurt."_

_Kushina blinked, and opened her mouth to say something, before letting a strained sigh escape her lips. "Okay. Go be the Hokage," she said quietly, nodding towards the door._

_Minato hesitated for a moment after seeing the look in his wife's eyes. He nodded once, disappearing in a flicker of yellow._

"You can't just blow off the village, though, Minato!" Kushina said suddenly, eyes wild and full of worry. "They picked you for a reason! Don't try and prioritize me over the rest of the Leaf!"

"But Kushina-"

"There will come a point," Kushina began, suddenly very serious, her eyes sharp and commanding, "Where you have to decide what's more important – us," she rubbed her stomach gingerly, "Or the Hidden Leaf. Something will happen, I know it will – and I know you know as well. Something will happen, and you'll have to make a decision." She reached across the table, and took his hand in his, squeezing tightly. "I'm here to tell you that you don't have to make it alone."

Minato blinked, a frown on his face. "What? Kushina, what are you saying?"

"I'm saying that you should never have to worry about whose side I'm on, Minato," she said with finality. "I was stubborn and selfish today, but that won't happen again. I promise. There are more important things."

"Than what? You? The baby?" Minato asked. "No. I won't have it. If it comes down to it… I'm not going to make the decision. I'm going to find a way to save both you _and_ the village."

"Minato-"

"There's always a way!" he said, squeezing her hand back. "There's always a way. Never give up hope. That's what Jiraiya-sensei always says, at least." He smiled at her, eyes twinkling with adoration. "I honestly can't believe you're already thinking about that sort of thing."

"What else can I do, y'know?" Kushina said, quieter this time, her eyes tracing the stains of tea ringing the interior of her mug. "I'm gonna be a mom. It's kind of my _job_ to worry."

Minato didn't have to say anything. Nor did Kushina have to respond. They just sat there, holding hands, the low hum of the kitchen light above them competing with the wind outside for auditory superiority.

"When's your due date?" Minato quietly asked, as he rubbed circles on her hand with his thumb.

Kushina smiled, leaning forward a bit in her chair. "October tenth."

Minato sighed, the bags under his eyes deepening every moment. "That's… not very far away," he admitted with a small chuckle. "It'll be here before we know it."

"A little less than eight months, yeah," Kushina said, her voice giving the impression that she wasn't believing what she was hearing. "It's going to be crazy."

"And exciting," Minato added.

"And amazing," Kushina sighed.

Another moment of silence. Then, Minato had a thought – something he hadn't really thought of until just then. "Hey… Kushina?"

"Yeah?"

"I think we should pick a different name."

The redhead blinked. "Huh? Why?"

Minato sighed, running his free hand across his face and through his hair. "Because… because I get a bad vibe from the _other_ Naruto. The one that showed up yesterday. I don't usually buy into these sorts of things, but…" he frowned. "I get a bad feeling from all of this. They showed up the same day we decide on a name, and one of them has the same one as the one we picked?"

Kushina laughed, the sound of her voice echoing off the walls and through the house, and Minato decompressed as it rattled around his ribcage, poking and prodding at his troubled heart, little by little, before it finally sighed and gave in to peace.

"Okay, fine. Let's change it, then. What do you want to change it to? I think Menma still works, if you're game."

Minato raised an eyebrow. "Since when are _you_ so saged about all of this? Weren't you really worried about what our baby would be named yesterday?"

Kushina shrugged. "Nah, not really. Not anymore, at least. I've had one hell of a week. I don't think much more could surprise me."

If she had been in her mindscape at that moment, she would've seen the Nine-Tails smirk as he slept, curled in a ball around the shackle bounded to his leg.

* * *

"How long is this supposed to take? It's been hours!"

Boruto dragged out the last syllable with every last fiber of strength his waning self control could wrestle together, flopping onto his back with a very petulant huff.

Naruto sighed with a smile, cracking open an eye to watch his son writhe around in the boat.

It was true; they had sailed all through the night and into the morning. Naruto didn't need a watch that it was now mid-afternoon, the day after they had… _picked up_ Hiashi and Hoheto.

"What are you sighing about?!" Boruto lurched to his feet, pointing an accusing finger at his father. "You knew this would happen, didn't you!"

Naruto just raised an eyebrow. "I never said that the journey to Mist would be a fast one." With another sigh – once again loud enough to the point where he was absolutely sure that Boruto could hear – he hoisted himself up from the floor of their small hired boat to look out over the edge and towards the blue-rimmed horizon.

"We aren't going very fast because we're using an ocean current to move," Naruto explained evenly. "Unless you'd like to grab an oar and start paddling, we're stuck at this pace. So calm down."

Boruto blanched at the idea of having to row. Their boat wasn't all that impressive in size – it was probably no more than twenty feet long and eight feet wide, with a sailless mast that jutted from the craft's center column. Still, having to push not only the boat but its four passengers, even with the assistance of chakra, would be mind-numbingly terrible.

"Well what are we supposed to do now, then? We've _already_ been on this thing for hours," Boruto grumbled, before tossing himself down onto one of the wooden benches that lined the outer wall of the boat, watching as the water lapped up against the outer hull. "We've got all this time to kill…"

Naruto could tell what the boy was thinking just by looking at the way his eyebrows would alternate between attacking one another across his forehead, and retreating up and into his hairline. As such, he understood the tumultuous battle of wills going on within Boruto's mind… purely because the same thoughts were running through his.

This was the first chance they'd had since arriving in the past to actually sit and _think_. Every other event that had transpired, for better or for worse, had led immediately to the next, and the next, and so on – leaving very little room for debilitation.

Naruto knew all too well the feeling of investing all of one's mental energy for one task and one task only, and the fallout that occurred once the rest of his mind would catch up to him once he completed it. It was almost like an instinctual, animalistic trait – being able to completely disregard the emotional, questioning side of the mind when it really mattered.

But now… now, they had all the time in the world.

And the events of the last few days had begun to bombard Boruto with wave after wave of "what if"s and "could have been"s.

Then, the implications of their disappearance tiptoed into Naruto's mind with all the subtlety of a drunken elephant. If they were here, what was going on in _their_ timeline? What would happen when the world found out that they were missing… if they were missing at all?

An unsettling thought surfaced.

What if there _was_ no coming back? What if Naruto and his son were essentially just clones – no longer tied to the original?

Naruto knew all too well how clones worked, and the thought that he might no longer be the _him_ he expected himself to be…

What if they had no home to return to? Or, more accurately… what if another version of them already occupied that space?

What of his wife? What of Himawari? What of his job, the village, the shinobi world as a whole?

Of Gaara, of Killer B, of Kakashi, of Tsunade, of Sakura and of Sasuke… of his _entire life?_

As quickly as before, another wave of nauseous panic washed over Naruto, as he debilitated just _what_ it was they were planning… how they were expecting to get home.

What they had discussed in his seal room… their grand plan, so to speak – was only as solid as the events of the next two days. One deviance and it would all fall to pieces. And Naruto didn't have to have an IQ similar to Shikamaru's to understand just how risky such a plan could be.

Still. The Seventh Hokage didn't get to be the Seventh Hokage for nothing – a certain degree of luck was almost required for the job.

And there it was – the blossoming flower of hope that Naruto clung to time and time again, without fail. Even now, the bud bloomed, warming his heart and calming his aching, encumbered mind.

All that was left now was his luck. And he desperately hoped it had yet to run dry.

Naruto sighed as he ran his hand through his hair, his outward appearance unchanged after years of village leadership and the necessity of calmness under pressure. "Hey. Boruto."

The boy's electric blue eyes shot up immediately, probing him like a searchlight the moment he heard his name called. "Yeah?"

Naruto smiled faintly. "Want to train a bit? Since we've got nothing better to do, y'know…"

Boruto ignited like a miniature sun. "Finally! It's about time!"

But Naruto could easily see past the indignance to the pure relief that ran through his veins, now that he was occupied again.

Like father, like son.

"Alright then, come here," Naruto gestured to the seat next to him, subtly casting a glance to where Hiashi and Hoheto slept on the other side of the boat. "And be quiet. We don't want to wake them up."

He knew they weren't sleeping. In fact, he was pretty certain that Hiashi was watching them, Byakugan active, even though they were turned the other way.

Boruto opened his mouth to reply in the affirmative, then remembered what his father had just told him and snapped it shut with an audible _click_. Instead, he just nodded his head violently, a bright smile burgeoning across his face.

"What do you wanna do?" he whispered. "We can practice shuriken, or kunai… or shadow clones! I can still only make four, y'know, but I think if I just tried a _little bit harder_ -"

"No," Naruto stated plainly, looking down at his son with a small frown. "I want you to show me your Rasengan."

The smile on Boruto's face evaporated like a water droplet on a hotplate. "M-my what?"

"Don't think I haven't forgotten about what happened in your fight during the Exams," Naruto said evenly. "You disobeyed one of my direct instructions, and for that you were disqualified from the event. That hasn't changed. All of… _this_ …" He gesticulated to the water all around them as it slowly meandered past, "…aside, you are still in trouble." He sighed, thinking for a moment, before nodding his head in self-agreeance and continued. "Still, despite that… you might need to use it sooner rather than later. And I want to make sure you're prepared. So show me your Rasengan."

With a gulp, Boruto nodded, sticking out his hand. His face morphed from one of anxiety to one of intense concentration, his eyebrows colliding across his forehead. Finally, after a moment of tense silence, the telltale whistle of a birthed Rasengan whirling to life in the palm of his hand echoed off the surface of the water, the front end of the boat radiating a faint blue glow.

He held it up in front of him as it swirled madly, and Naruto leaned in to get a closer look, narrowing his eyes as he scrutinized it for error.

Then, he simply nodded. "Alright. That's enough, then."

Boruto let the jutsu fizzle out, blinking in surprise. "That's it?"

"Yeah," Naruto shrugged with a small smile. "I just needed to see how far you got without my help."

"You're… you're not mad at me?"

"Of course I'm angry with you, Boruto," Naruto said, one eyebrow raised. "You did something incredibly dangerous, trying to use the Rasengan before you've properly mastered it. And you could have been hurt. Badly."

"But I was just-"

"No buts," Naruto said with a stern look. When it became obvious that Boruto was _still_ not getting it, he raised his own hand and began to channel chakra through it, in a way that he had done countless times before.

"Watch," he instructed, before proceeding through the steps as slowly as he could. The air above his hand began to ripple from the overabundance of energy, glowing a bright blue glow. Then, the currents of chakra started to swirl and rotate, taking a rough spherical shape that spat and flashed blue from all sides.

With another burst of chakra, the sphere became denser and denser, before it was a purely spherical ball, humming with power. The whole thing spun wildly in one direction, rotating like a planet between a pair of blond suns.

Bright, blue, brilliant.

_Incomplete._

"This is where you're at right now," Naruto stated. "When I learned this jutsu, it was taught to me in three steps. The first was generating enough chakra to actually form the thing. The next was to swirl it into a sphere, like this." He nodded down at his outstretched hand. "At first, I had the same thought you did. It's a sphere like it's supposed to be, and it can do a lot of damage, so why bother learning the rest, right?"

As if to prove his point, the Rasengan began to fluctuate wildly, becoming oblong along its equator, the quiet hum replaced with a worrisome hiss.

"You see? This form of Rasengan is incredibly unstable. A proper Rasengan is supposed to be self-sustaining, to the point where you don't have to do anything other than hold and guide it wherever you want it to go."

Boruto nodded. "Yeah…?"

"But _this_ Rasengan…" Naruto looked down at his palm again, as the chakra began to violently spit out in different directions. "This Rasengan cannot do that. It's deceptive, because it _can_ sustain itself for a few minutes, but there's also the chance that it will destabilize before then-"

Right on cue, the Rasengan shattered into a bright ball of light. The explosion rocked the boat sideways, spewing water across the bow and into the boat, misting the passengers with a spray of salty seawater. Naruto just barely was able to divert it away from them as the ricochet of energy reverberated through his arm, bouncing between the two Uzumaki like a tuning fork.

"You see?" Naruto said, wincing when he realized that the explosion may have been more… _explosive_ than intended. "And that was only at tenth of the normal size I make them."

Boruto blinked. "A t-tenth?"

"Yeah," Naruto said knowingly. "And you've been trying to do it at full power."

Eyes wide as saucers, Boruto sat down beside his father, looking down at the wooden floor of the boat as trapped water sloshed back and forth from the sea's movements.

"Learn the third step," Naruto said pointedly, grasping his son's shoulder with his hand. "Compression and counterflow. Get that down, and the Rasengan will never-"

Naruto stumbled. A wheezing breath squeaked from his mouth instead of the rest of his sentence, his eyes wide in surprise.

Boruto turned in shock, watching as his father sank to his knees before him. "Dad?"

"That's Two and Five," Naruto coughed, grabbing at the skin under his shirt. "Damn, I _really_ wish they would time things out better…"

"What's wrong?" a voice suddenly called from beside them. "Naruto?"

The one-armed man simply sighed, more from exhaustion than from agitation. He looked up to where Hiashi stood, arms crossed and eyes both concerned and highly skeptical, and began to work his way through the motions of standing upright once again.

"Just a hiccup in my plans," Naruto said carefully, his breath still ragged. "It shouldn't happen again – at least, not for a while."

Hiashi narrowed his eyes, but otherwise said nothing.

"What were you guys doing?" came a small voice from beside Hiashi, and Boruto turned to meet the eyes of the boy he had held at knifepoint the previous day.

"Uhh, well…" Boruto began, obviously not sure whether or not it was okay to explain what it was they had been doing.

"We were gonna train a bit," Naruto smiled down at the boy, and he sweeped his arm forward in a welcoming gesture. "You should join us. It helps keep your mind occupied, trust me."

Hoheto just blinked, before looking up at Hiashi as if for permission, before slowly making his way over to where Boruto was sitting.

Boruto and Hoheto just stared at each other for a moment, the Hyuuga boy beginning to show signs of apprehension.

Then, in trademark Uzumaki fashion, Boruto blurted out a question without any consideration one way or the other.

"What's your name again?"

Hoheto jumped at the sound, before blinking a few times and smiling sheepishly. "Umm… my name is Hoheto Hyuuga. I am a genin from the Hidden Leaf Village, currently under the tutelage of jounin and clan leader Hiashi Hyuuga." His eyes glanced over towards Hiashi for a split second, before returning to Boruto. "I'm… this is my first mission outside of the village."

Much to Hoheto's evident surprise, Boruto smiled. "Oh, cool! Yeah, this is my first mission outside of the village, too. My dad's too much of a hardass to ever let me out."

"I'm right here, you know," Naruto deadpanned, leaning back as he watched the boys interact – Boruto giving him a dirty look before he dragged Hoheto off to the other side of the boat, as far from the two adults as the confined space allowed. Even better for the mind in tumultuous situations was friendship, and Naruto didn't realize it at first, but Hoheto may have been a blessing in disguise. Hiashi was necessary for the plan, but Hoheto was an outlier – an unexpected addition.

Naruto remembered little of the man from their time – he was one of the many Hyuuga the Leaf sent to the front lines during the Fourth Shinobi War, and Naruto hadn't stayed in one place for much longer than five minutes throughout the entire two-day affair. But when he did the math, it made sense – Hoheto was around 27 at the time of the war, and therefore must have been around Boruto's age at his birth.

In their time, Hoheto had retired from military service shortly after the war in order to open a tea shop on the far west corner of the village – one that did reasonably well, if memory served. He had a family with a nondescript civilian woman a few years his junior, and the man was exceptionally happy, if Naruto's occasional business was anything to go off of.

Still, he wasn't even sure if he was thinking of Hoheto, or someone else. It had been a long time since the last time he had seen the Hyuuga jounin.

 _'When I get back, I need to make an effort to get to know him better,'_ Naruto thought to himself bemusedly.

Yet another reason to keep moving forward. If they didn't return to the future sooner rather than later, then there was no telling what kind of repercussions could spiral out of control.

Then again, there was no telling what had _already_ spiraled out of control.

Hoheto and Boruto continued chatting, Hoheto warming up to the boy as their conversation unfolded into discussions of 'cool jutsu' and whatever hobbies they both fancied. It was a heartwarming sight – even though they were both, intrinsically, from entirely different eras of the Leaf, common ground could always be found between future friends. It's what Naruto cherished the most about his home – and why he was so proud that his son was able to bridge the gap… perhaps not over distance in this case, but over _time_.

Not even Naruto could lay claim to _that_ feat.

"Amusing, aren't they?"

Naruto was brought back out of his reverie by Hiashi's quiet question, as the man took the seat next to him - respectably far away, of course. Naruto just smiled and turned to look back at his son and Hoheto as they chatted. "Yeah."

Hiashi gave a very smile smile in response, before they settled into a comfortable silence.

"He looks up to you tremendously, you know."

Naruto blinked. "I'm sorry?"

"Even I can see it." Hiashi turned his silverescent eyes back to Naruto's. "Even though I cannot say I am the most… receptive to emotion. That is more of my brother's strong suit."

Naruto gave a single, short chuckle in response.

"Still," Hiashi continued, eyes returning to the two boys as they scrutinized Hoheto's kunai pouch, "He holds quite a bit of self-doubt within himself. Most likely due to the fact that you are his father, and others look up to you as well – not just Boruto."

Naruto blinked once. "I'm sorry?"

"I suspect the reason he acts the way he does is because he wants your attention. I take it you are a busy man?"

"I… I'm… yeah, I suppose you could say that." Naruto frowned, raising an eyebrow. "But how did you know? Is it really that painfully obvious?"

"Because I did the same thing to my father when I was his age… although, perhaps not as flagrantly," Hiashi replied smoothly, still staring forward. "I could tell the moment his eyes lit up when you offered to train him. He treasures your company – tremendously so."

The Hyuuga sighed, running his hands across his clothes to smooth them out. "Now, I cannot say I am an expert in parenting in the slightest. My betrothed and I certainly plan on having children… but not until after I am married."

He turned to look at Naruto again. "But I can tell you as a son, firsthand, that he loves you. And you love him. But please, spend some time with him – outside of missions, or ninja work. I know not where you came from, or where your allegiances really lie, but I trust in the fact that you are intelligent and thoughtful and can make an informed decision. Your son will be all the better for it, I can assure you of that."

Naruto was silent for a moment – mostly in shock. _This_ Hiashi was much more forthcoming with his advice, and was simply more interactive in general. The man had become jaded and reclusive after the death of his wife, and only after _decades_ of Hinata's constant nurturing was he able to climb back up the wall of his depressive slump and return to a state somewhat similar to how he was before everything began. At least, that was what Hinata had said.

And after the birth of his grandchildren, he opened up even more; even Naruto, with his limited exposure to his father-in-law before marrying the man's daughter, could see the change.

But he'd never seen Hiashi at his most pure.

Naruto cleared his throat, still surprised at how forward the Hyuuga was. "I… Uhh… Thanks."

Hiashi just nodded once, still staring across the boat. "What are you training him?"

The sudden shift of topics, however, Naruto was all too familiar with. The Hyuuga, even his own wife up to a certain extent, preferred to get right to the middle of things as soon as possible.

' _And yet they're fantastic politicians,'_ Naruto mused to himself with a mental shake of his head.

"Well… I guess you could call it a chakra control exercise," Naruto said carefully. Although he trusted Hiashi more than almost anyone else in this timeline, he was still hesitant to reveal too much about _himself_ ; trust was, after all, a two-way street.

"A chakra control exercise that happens to look strikingly… familiar?" Hiashi asked, more of a statement than a question… but judging from the way he left it hanging in the air between them, Naruto was able to ascertain the man was subtly probing him.

' _Ahh. So Hiashi knew about the Rasengan, then.'_

"Who are you?" Hiashi suddenly asked, turning and narrowing his eyes at Naruto. "And I mean who you _really_ are. I know your first name, and that you are unsettlingly… kind, considering the amount of stress Lord Fourth put into stating you are not to be trusted. You knew _my name_ , considering I have never seen you before, nor you me." He looked away for a second. "You know of the weakness present within the Byakugan, as well as much, much more than someone like you should. Something does not add up here… and I intend to get to the bottom of it sooner rather than later."

Naruto blinked once, then twice.

Then, he smiled, letting out a sharp chuckle. "Well alright then, have at it. I'm interested to see what you find."

Hiashi frowned, raising an eyebrow inquisitively.

But, to Naruto's surprise, he didn't anger. He just sighed.

"As am I."

A blanket of somewhat tense silence settled over the two for what seemed like hours, but in all actuality was most likely no more than a few seconds. Still, to Naruto, it was an eternity – just _what_ was the man on about?

He decided that the best course of action would be to keep him talking… at least, until Naruto and Hoheto stopped chatting amongst themselves.

"Is that your son?" Naruto asked, knowing full well he wasn't.

Hiashi blinked, then shook his head slowly and methodically. "No, he is not. I am simply giving him some supplemental training before he goes off and partakes in official missions with his genin team."

"Ahh, clan affairs, then."

"I beg your pardon?" Hiashi turned to look at Naruto, his face a sheet of stone.

"You're training him to be a better part of your clan," Naruto clarified. "You must think highly of him."

"He is a Hyuuga," Hiashi said simply. "He is family."

Naruto just nodded. "I understand." He scratched his neck nonchalantly, hoping to ease the small bit of tension that had descended upon them since they had begun talking. "Still, you could've fooled me." When he saw Hiashi's confusion, he smiled, and continued. "About Hoheto being your son, I mean. The way you coddle him… and with all that advice you were just dishing out… I'd've thought you were some sort of saged old grandfather."

Once again, Hiashi was full of surprises. The man smiled and gave a quiet chuckle. "I suppose. But those days are far, far ahead of me."

Mentally, Naruto smiled a knowing smile. "It'll be sooner than you think, y'know."

Hiashi's froze for a split second, but the moment passed as soon as it had come. "Oh, I'm well aware of that. My wife-to-be and I are quite excited to start trying for a proper family soon."

"Oh, that's good to hear!" Naruto said with a grin. "Trust me, they're not all as good-natured as Hoheto over there. From what I've seen of the boy, he's a fantastic kid." He nodded towards where Boruto was now standing, working through a set of sloppy kata that the boat seemed hell-bent on preventing with all of its jostling. "That one… he's got a heart of fire, I can tell you that much." He smiled. "Reminds me of me when I was his age, actually. His mother always says so."

Hiashi smiled and nodded. "Indeed. Even without the physical similarities, he is your spitting image."

Naruto scoffed. "Believe it or not, I see a lot more of his mother in him than me. His will, his heart, his kindness… that kind of thing. That was all her."

Hiashi nodded absentmindedly. "I'm sure she is a magnificent kunoichi."

Naruto raised a knowing eyebrow. "And how are you so sure she is a ninja?"

"I didn't," Hiashi chuckled. "That one was an educated guess."

"Hey! Dad!" Boruto suddenly shouted, trying to run to the other side of the boat to his father against the rocking of the boat beneath him. "Guess what!"

"What's that?"

"Hoheto's really good at the Gentle Fist!" he said excitedly, eyes ablaze with enthusiasm. "And he can already see almost fifty yards with the Byakugan!" He frowned then, puffing out his chest. "But I still bet that Himawari can see farther."

As soon as he had said it, Boruto and Naruto both cringed.

 _That_ was a slipup that was sure to come back and bite them in their asses.

"Himawari?"

And it would seem that it would happen sooner rather than later.

Boruto smiled a nervous smile. "Oh… eh, well, she's my sister, see… and she can see really well… but I bet it's _nothing_ like the Byakugan, y'know! Super different stuff-"

"She's got good eyesight," Naruto interjected. "That's all."

Hiashi narrowed his eyes. "I just asked who she was."

Naruto paled. "Oh. Well, it's true. She's got good eyesight."

Silence overtook the four shinobi, and they simply stood in a circle in the middle of the boat in an awkward haze.

Then, suddenly, the air began to grow hazy, the horizon disappearing behind a layer of thick fog. Several more moments passed, and their ship began to appear as if it was plunging headfirst into a beached cloud.

"Whoa…" Hoheto whispered. "That mist…"

"It came out of nowhere," Boruto completed.

"That's because it's manmade," Naruto said, looking up at the foggy sky. "At least, I think it is."

"It is," Hiashi confirmed, his Byakugan blaring across his face. "I can see the subtle traces of chakra in the mist."

"Interesting," Naruto muttered to himself. "I don't remember this from the first time I was here."

The boat lurched beneath them, the current harshly changing directions underneath the water. The waves began to pull the boat more to the right, and the mist kept getting thicker…

"I believe it is a seal that we triggered," Hiashi said calmly, looking around. "Regardless, it is incredibly disorienting. I cannot see very far ahead."

The sound of croaking frogs and waves lapping against shorelines whispered through the air before them, the sea otherwise completely silent. It was incredibly foreboding… even Naruto could sense Kurama stirring inside of his gut.

Something was wrong here.

The mist began to thicken further, and tall, looming spires of black silhouetted against the backdrop like smudges in a painting.

The Hidden Mist Village.

They had arrived.

* * *

The place was as deserted as it sounded.

Not a soul moved through the streets, no children playing with one another between the buildings as shopkeepers and civilians made their way across the village. No stalls were set up, or vendors to tend them, and the windows and shutters were all drawn in and secured firmly to the buildings that lined the road leading from the docks to the village proper.

It looked like a complete ghost town, and it unnerved Boruto to no end.

"Isn't this place supposed to be huge?" he asked quietly, as he walked between his father and his grandfather – well, the man that would become his grandfather.

It was strange, seeing his mother's father younger than she was in his own time. Boruto was used to the man being some sort of ever-present figure of class and dignity, considering the man was nothing short of royalty. Being the father-in-law of a Kage, let alone a retired clan leader, was certain to turn heads. But now, as a young jounin, Boruto's image of the man as some kind of omnipotent sage had shattered like a sheet of glass.

"It is," Naruto said. "But it's mostly hidden behind the fog right now."

"Something seems amiss here," Hiashi said with a frown, turning from building to building to check for chakra signatures. "I can see people inside the houses, but they aren't moving."

Naruto froze midstep, the blood draining from his face. "Are you saying they're dead?"

"No," Hiashi replied smoothly. "They look as if they are hiding from something. As to what that 'something' is, I have no idea."

Naruto took a deep breath and nodded, turning back to the long, flowing streets with narrowed eyes. That meant that the villagers were still all here… they were just locked up in their homes.

"Wait," Hiashi murmured, pointing towards a side street that went down a small hill. "There is a building down there that is still open. Whoever is inside is moving around quite a bit."

"Let's check it out," Naruto decided, steering the group down the alleyway.

When they arrived at the place that Hiashi had pointed out, Naruto breathed a heavy sigh of relief. "Good. Maybe she'll know what's going on."

The small corner market had all but one of its shutters closed and latched tight, but the door was open, and Naruto could see the figure of a short and stout old woman moving around behind the counter, storing things away in preparation to close down like everyone else, it seemed.

They made their way through the door, which opened easily. A bell chimed as they crossed the threshold, and the woman froze, her wrinkled eyes darting up from the rows of cans she was placing behind the counter.

"Who are you?" she stated quickly, moving her hands under the counter as if she was looking for something.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you," Hiashi warned, and the woman froze, turning to glare in the impassive Hyuuga's direction. From the looks of it, the woman had been searching for a weapon, then.

"We don't mean you any harm," Naruto said gently, as he held his hand out as a peace offering. "We're just travelers making our way through the village, and we noticed everyone was gone. Do you know what's going on?"

The woman's eyes snapped to him, and she glared holes in his face for several long minutes… before she sighed and dropped forward, her face sinking as she did so. "Always running behind. Always. It never fails to get me into trouble, too."

"I… I'm sorry?"

"You shouldn't be here," she stated simply, eyes narrowed. "The village is under lockdown. The Mizukage himself made the decree just a few short hours ago."

Naruto blinked in surprise. "Umm… the Mizukage?"

He knew that the man _should_ have been unconscious, if his previous encounters with the jinchuuriki of this world were anything to go by. It was why they were here, after all. So he couldn't possibly have made the law.

The woman frowned at him, as if she was agitated by the simple fact he didn't know what was going on. "Yes. You know, our village leader? Lord Fifth proclaimed that a mandatory curfew is to be enforced for the next three days. Some say it's to prevent looting and rioting, but I say it's all just a show. A power play, if you know what I mean. Everyone knows the looting happens anyway."

"Umm… I'm afraid I don't," Naruto said with a small smile. "Looting? Rioting? I must have misheard you."

"Oh, no, it happens every time there's a change in leadership here. I should know, I've lived through almost all of them." The woman sighed, her eyes shifting down to the floorboards in thought. "It happened from the First and Second, then the Second and Third, and _especially_ from the Third to the Fourth. Three council members were hanged that weekend." She frowned, looking back up into Naruto's eyes. "And it'll happen again now that the Fifth's in charge. All this curfew nonsense will serve to do is give the robbers a chance to organize themselves." She gestured to the piles of food and clothing that were still sticking out of boxes, stacked along the walls, ready to be moved somewhere safer. "If all of this isn't stored away by that point, I'm through."

"I'm sorry," Naruto blurted, "Did you just say the _Fifth_? Isn't the Mist currently under the reign of the _Fourth_ Mizukage, Yagura?"

The woman froze, giving Naruto a strange look. Then, she scoffed, rolling her eyes. "That's old hat, boy. Yagura has been gone for days now. The Fifth took control yesterday evening." She moved towards the boxes again, several cans of tomatoes in her hands. "Hence why I suggest you and your…" she eyed the group of Leaf shinobi warily, "…strange family ought to leave. Immediately. Things are about to get really nasty."

Naruto mentally noted that the lady was correct - _technically_ , they _were_ all family. Some by quite the extension, others by marriages that had yet to exist, but family nonetheless.

"Where is the Mizukage at now?" Naruto said carefully, watching as the woman picked a box up and hoisted it along towards the back room.

She froze at the question, narrowing her eyes again. "What business does a group of travelers have with the Mizukage? And why do you refuse to listen to me and leave, now that you still have the chance?"

"Ma'am," Hiashi said, bowing slightly in respect for joining the conversation. "If it isn't the same to you, we simply would like to know where _not_ to be. In the event of an… _incident¸_ of course _._ "

The woman paused, thinking to herself carefully, before she sighed in acceptance. "Alright. I suppose that's understandable. The Mizukage's Tower is the large, flat building in the center of the valley. It's the one built on top of the aqueducts. Hard to miss." She disappeared behind the back door for a moment, then returned empty-handed.

"The best place to go in order to leave is the southern shipping route," the woman said. "Hardly anyone uses it this time of year. The odds of pirates or bandits isn't quite as high that way." She began to herd them towards the door, pausing the draw in the last remaining shutter, before lowering a thick slab of wood behind it to keep it from moving. "Now go. Tell no one you spoke to me."

She ushered them all out the door, leaning over and plucking the sign that said "Baba's General Goods" from the frame beside it, making her way back in.

Naruto turned around as she began to close the door behind them. "Thank you," he said simply with a nod of his head, and she simply grunted in response and clicked the door shut.

They stood outside of the building for a few moments, listening as they heard the sound of hammering echo from within the store. Finally, Naruto began to move, his eyes tracing the horizon until they fell upon the large building in the center of the village.

"We're… we're not leaving, right, dad?" Boruto asked, taking a look around himself. "That old lady thought we were gonna leave."

"No," Naruto confirmed, narrowing his eyes at the Mizukage Tower. "No. Something is definitely wrong here. It seems like there was some sort of coup while Yagura was unconscious." He started walking again, slowly but confidently.

Boruto just nodded absentmindedly, his attention elsewhere at the moment. The village was simply too amazing – a completely different change of pace from the everyday monotony of the Leaf village.

Well, _his_ Leaf village, at least.

He let his eyes wander across the facades of the buildings, up the strange slanted, round rooftops, across the asymmetric gutters that ran down towards the ground, rust blossoming at the joints where the frame met the building's outer wall.

They passed a few more streets, which ducked off behind the strange buildings off to some unseen final destination. The dark alleyways wound their way through the village, running parallel to the main road they were currently walking down, occasionally opening back out into the street every few blocks.

Boruto watched them pass him by absentmindedly, his mind drifting to thoughts of how anyone could walk down such a small path. Just as he was about to turn back ahead again to reassure himself that they were going the right direction, he saw it.

He froze, eyes wide as he did a double-take.

Just as soon as he had seen the row of sharp, pearl-white teeth in the shadows of one of the alleyways, they were gone again.

Boruto stopped walking, his eyes narrowing at the slit between the buildings.

He _had_ seen something. He was sure of it. The image was simply too sharp in his mind to ignore.

With one hand, he reached down into his kunai pouch, but frowned when he felt none left. ' _They must've fallen out when we were running everywhere,'_ Boruto groaned mentally. ' _Aww, man, Mom's gonna kill me.'_

He dipped his hand further down into the holster, grabbing the next best thing – a pair of shuriken. Brandishing them between his knuckles, he began to creep forward, the darkness of the alley seemingly growing colder… more _menacing_ with every step…

"Boruto?"

It took everything the boy had not to yelp when he felt a hand on his shoulder, before he swiveled around to look up at his father, heart thundering in his chest. "Jeez… you scared the crap out of me…"

"Yeah, and you scared me too," Naruto said with a frown. "We were already three streets over when I realized you weren't with us anymore."

Seeing the way his son gave the alleyway sidelong glances every moment or so, Naruto narrowed his eyes. "Boruto? What's wrong?"

"I saw something," Boruto muttered, turning to look back again. "Down there."

"What was it?"

"A row of teeth. Like… like a shark's."

When his father didn't respond immediately, he turned around again, ready to make a retort about how he _knew_ he had seen what he had seen, and that Naruto should believe him.

When he saw how wide Naruto's eyes had gotten, his blood ran cold.

"Dad?" he asked in a small voice.

The blond man blinked, looking down at Boruto with an air of seriousness that scared him a little, if he was honest.

Then, Naruto dipped past his cloak, looking for something in the folds of his clothing.

"Boruto," he said evenly. "You cannot leave my sight. You understand me? If you so much as wander around the corner and I'm not there, you'll _die._ "

The genin's heart stopped for a moment. "W-what? Wait, seriously?"

"Here. Take this." Naruto pulled his hand out of the cloak, holding the object out for his son to take.

Boruto froze. "Dad? Are you sure?"

"He gave it to us for a reason," Naruto said seriously, as Boruto reached up with trembling hands to grab the three-pronged kunai from his father's grasp. "If you're in trouble – _at all_ – throw it on the ground. Do you understand me?"

Boruto's mouth flapped open and closed repeatedly, obviously at a loss for words.

" _Do you understand me?_ " Naruto repeated, clasping his son's shoulder for emphasis. "This isn't a joke anymore, Boruto. Things might get ugly. I need to make sure you'll listen to me."

"Y-yeah. Yeah, dad, I understand," Boruto said quietly, eyes still staring down at the kunai in his hands.

The Fourth Hokage. The most feared S-Ranked ninja of the post-Third-War era.

If his father found it necessary to call _him_ for help…

Boruto gulped.

Things were about to get ugly, indeed.

* * *

The front doors of the Kage's Tower creaked open with a sense of finality, the rusty hinges moaning under the motion.

The interior of the building was completely devoid of people – the only things occupying the entry room were ceremonial paintings and other strange art sculptures that sat on pedestals lining the walls. Several long, winding vines grew in the corners, the plants stretching out across the walls and along the baseboards. A front desk, dusty from apparent lack of use sat in the corner, a stack of browning papers held in place by an old, rusty kunai on its surface. A certain musty smell wafted through the air, and from where Boruto could see light peeking in past drawn shutters down the halls that stretched out from the room they were currently standing in, dust particles drifted through the air like clouds.

"This place is creepy," he said as the door hissed shut behind them, the feeling of dread that reverberated through the air when the latch caught sending chills down his spine.

"It does not look like anyone has been here for a _long_ time," Hiashi agreed, activating his Byakugan and looking up, obviously scanning the upper floors of the facility.

Boruto heard Hoheto gulp beside him. The boy was barely the same age as he was, and it was quite apparent that he was scared out of his mind. To his surprise, Boruto wasn't feeling much, other than mild anxiety in regards to what was bound to happen next. But he knew his didn't have much to worry about. His father was a decent diplomat, considering he had been brokering treaties and battling his way through politics for the past five years. On top of that, he could fight – Boruto knew that for certain now. He'd seen it himself. He even had his grandfather – the Fourth – at his beck and call, should he need him.

Boruto paused, shaking his head with a frown. No. It was unwise to treat a trump card such as the Fourth's sudden appearance in battle as anything more than a gift. Hell, he might not come at all.

Still, he felt safe… _secure_.

Nothing bad could happen when his dad was around… right?

Hoheto, on the other hand, was not quite in the same boat as he was. Although the boy was extraordinarily talented, he was among a group of people that he wasn't certain he could trust completely – not to the same degree as father and son, at least. Hell, Boruto had held him at knifepoint. _That_ had to be at least _somewhat_ unnerving - even now, the next day.

He took a step to his right and leaned his shoulder into the other boy's, as if to say, ' _I've got your back.'_ When Hoheto jumped and turned to look at him, Boruto said nothing – opting to instead follow his father as he made his way down the hallways towards a set of long, spiraling stairs that ran along the far wall.

Naruto began to take the stairs one by one, each creaking in protest as he moved. The other three shinobi followed close behind, as the tower eased by them, the cobwebbed chandelier above them waving in the dark – almost like it was inviting them forward.

Finally, the stairs gave way to a doorway. Instead of taking precautions to determine the other side of the door was uninhabited like the rest of the Tower, Naruto simply just walked forward and swung the door open, stepping through immediately afterward as if he had places to be. Hesitantly, the others followed behind him in a line, taking a look at their surroundings as they walked.

The room was long and wide, with doors scattered down both sides. The wallpaper was coming undone near the baseboards, the paint faded and chipped. The doors themselves were all shut tightly, the knobs all rusty and decrepit. The wooden flooring underneath them reeked like mildew, and as they walked across the surface, it felt like it would give way at any moment and send them tumbling back down to the bottom floor.

"This place is awful," Boruto mumbled to himself, as they continued down the hall.

Naruto just grunted in agreement from the front of the pack, as they made it to the end of the hall.

One lone door stood before them, just as faded as the others.

Naruto sighed, and grasped the handle, twisting it and walking forward.

The first thing Boruto noticed was the bright light drifting through the row of bay windows that lined the entire room, circling a large, ornate desk and a pair of simple wooden chairs. The room seemed much less musty than the rest of the building, and the lack of dust particles lingering in the beams of light appeared to prove him right.

That's when he realized they were no longer alone.

The chair was swiveled around behind the desk, as if the occupant was looking off into the distance out the rear window. It was like every cheesy bad guy movie Boruto had ever seen – the man sitting in the chair would swivel it around, most likely petting a fluffy white cat, before chaining them all up and maniacally explaining his master plan just before getting beaten by the good guys.

Instead, a man walked out of the shadow of a curtain in the corner, his arms crossed across his chest.

He had an orange mask on his face. One beady red eye shone through the lone hole in the front, girdled by a ring of strange black flames that wrapped up and around the mask's surface, dipping past where the man's long and unkempt jet black hair obscured it from view.

Naruto tensed.

The door slammed shut behind them.

"Well then, this is an interesting surprise," a deep, baritone voice cooed, as he walked across the room. Boruto couldn't see in order to know for sure, but judging by the strange tingling sensation along the back of his neck, the man was scrutinizing them very closely. "I haven't even had the time to change the drapes. Shame to have company when the Tower is in a state like this."

Out of the corner of his eye, Boruto watched as his wide-eyed father stared at the other man. It was obvious that they had met before – perhaps in their time and not this one, but had met nonetheless.

"Where is Yagura?" he asked simply, eyes narrowing. "What did you do to him?"

"Ahh," the masked man sighed, as if something that had been troubling his mind suddenly became clear. "I had expected that the Fourth Mizukage's… _assailants_ would come sooner or later to claim their prize, but not quite so soon." He walked back towards the desk, pulling the chair forward and easing himself down into it respectfully. "Nor did I expect you to bring children. How interesting."

He gestured to the chairs positioned in front of the desk. "Please. Sit."

Naruto didn't move.

The rest of the group, following Naruto's lead, didn't either.

Several moments of silence passed, before the man sighed and lowered his hand. "Yagura was weak. Unexperienced. Easily influenced. It was only natural, then, that the village rose up and rebelled during his moment of weakness."

Naruto narrowed his eyes, and Boruto could tell by the way the man's jaw flexed that he was incredibly frustrated.

"You did this, didn't you."

It wasn't a question.

The masked man simply paused, before he let out a quiet chuckle. "I suppose it was of no use trying to hide _that_ bit of information."

"Where is he, then?"

The man turned his head to look back up at Naruto again, and Boruto could see the way the red eye – wait, was that the _Sharingan?_ – narrowed beyond the mask's socket.

"You know, I don't believe we've met," the man said suddenly, eye still steeled on Naruto.

"Where is he, Tobi?"

Boruto jolted, his eyes flickering to the masked man to his father, then back again. _This_ was Tobi? The one… the one their plans hinged on? The one that had single-handedly almost ended the world? The fallen Uchiha – the Fourth's first lost student?

"Tobi?" the man chuckled. "I don't believe I've ever been called by _that_ name before. Perhaps you are mistaking me for someone else." The mask turned to look out the window, down into the deserted village below. "Regardless, names are of little consequence to me. _Titles_ mean everything in this world."

Silence. Then, he spoke again. "You know, you asked me a question regarding Yagura… I feel it is only fair that I do the same… don't you agree?" He swiveled around again, rising to his feet.

"Where is it? Where is the Three-Tails?"

Boruto watched as his father smirked, a fire in his eyes. "If you want him, you're going to have to go through me." Naruto clenched his hand into a ball. "Now. Tell me."

He took a step forward, and slammed the fist down on the desk. "Where. Is. Yagura."

Tobi just smirked. At least, Boruto assumed he had smirked. He couldn't tell with the mask.

"Aah, and if you want _him_ , _you're_ going to have to go through _us_."

The door opened behind them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guess who finally remembered to post on Sunday? I think I'm /finally/ starting to get the hang of AO3. Nice!
> 
> Thanks for reading, and I'll see you next chapter.  
> -Endo


	12. Chapter 12

"Well, well, well."

The voice was like a gravelly syrup, sweetening the air to an almost sickening degree. It hung amidst the dust for a moment, before the door slammed shut behind them.

Boruto and Hoheto both spun on their heels. Naruto just turned and watched, observing their faces.

Would it truly be who he thought it would be?

At the short, narrow intake of breath his son took, his fears were calcified.

When he first thought of travelling to the Hidden Mist, his thoughts gravitated towards Zabuza. His mind was still trapped in the past, living his life through his eyes and his experiences alone. The famed swordsman was most likely barely older than Boruto in this time – if that.

He had, however, neglected to remember Kisame.

"Pleasure of you to join us," Tobi said placidly, moving to the window again as Naruto began to turn, eyes wide at the possibility of seeing another one of the Akatsuki's long-gone members for the first time in over twenty years.

Kisame Hoshigaki. Swordsman of the Mist. Legendary "Tailed Beast Without a Tail". The widowed companion of Itachi Uchiha. Died by none other than his own hands – prideful even at the end.

And there he was.

He looked nothing like he had in the days of the Akatsuki. His arms were wrapped in loose arm warmers, and his body was covered in a simple black vest of some kind which helped prevent the wide, tan strap of his massive sword from cutting into his flesh.

One thing that hadn't changed, however, was that he was grinning like an animal.

"Oh, but the pleasure is all mine," Kisame smiled, his beady little eyes piercing Naruto's with startling conviction. "I take it these are the _guests_ you informed me of, Madara?"

"They're the ones that… _incapacitated_ our Mizukage, yes," Tobi said in an almost exaggerated way, as if speaking to a child. "It truly is a shame. Lord Yagura was such a wonderful shinobi."

"And what of the Three-Tails?" Kisame smirked, eyes having yet to leave Naruto's.

Tobi stepped forward.

"That is what I intend to find out."

The tension that had been building since the beginning - almost tangibly dangling before their eyes in the hazy air like a strand of string – it all snapped, giving way to the feeling of freefall, of surprise, of _gut-lurching terror_ –

A flicker of movement was all the warning Naruto had.

Then, the entire building _exploded_.

Naruto leapt into action, eyes golden and piercing. He jumped forward and grabbed each of the two Hyuuga men, then his own son, before executing a rough-yet-effective shunshin out of the office as it came tumbling down around them.

* * *

"What on earth—" Hiashi began to blurt, his mind struggling to process the events in the office. Dust and debris plumed into the air as secondary explosions near the base of the tower rocked the village, shockwaves reverberating off of the shuttered windows and barricaded doors that lined the city streets below.

They tumbled apart, Boruto and Hiashi and Hoheto slipping off of the rooftop and rolling to the ground beside a boarded-up storefront, Naruto stumbling on his feet above them.

Naruto shot around to check on his son when he felt like the coast was clear; the boy's chest was heaving, his eyes wide and mouth agape in total shock.

"You alright?" he quickly called out from above, looking down on the others as they rose to their feet.

"Y-"

Boruto didn't get the chance to answer; Naruto turned away and had just enough time to squint as a massive blur slammed forward into him. He felt the air in his lungs force its way out of his chest as Kisame's body connected with his. Naruto's feet slipping back ever so slightly, the cement rooftop they were standing upon cracking and popping under the strain. Kisame's black eyes burrowed into Naruto's, sneer deepening. "You're stronger than you look."

"He's a jinchuuriki; what else would you expect?" The low, almost bored voice of Tobi stated behind the shark-man.

Naruto just narrowed his eyes. Well, _that_ was a surprise. How Tobi knew that was beyond him... perhaps it was an educated guess?

Samehada began to shake and hiss on Kisame's back. "Is that so?"

"Look," Naruto pressed, ignoring Kisame and looking at Tobi from over the shark-man's shoulder. "I'm not here to fight. None of us are." He gestured to the others down below him. "I'm just here to talk."

He narrowed his eyes. "To you, Tobi."

The masked man said nothing. Several seconds passed, the flames from the Mizukage's Tower lapping at the sky behind them.

He spoke.

"Talk is of no importance to me. What _is…_ " He took a step forward, "…is _action_."

Naruto's eyes widened, and he moved to leap off of the rooftop and back down to street level… back to his son.

Kisame jumped in his way.

"Oh no you don't," the man grinned. "Lord Madara doesn't want you to go anywhere."

Hiashi looked up at the rooftop, noting the two ninja in their standoff. Naruto watched as he gathered up the children and began to push them away, moving towards the other side of the courtyard.

"Kisame," Tobi drawled, "You take the jinchuuriki. I'll go retrieve his… _precious cargo._ "

"Don't you touch them!" Naruto snarled, eyes biting and fierce as he turned to face the masked ninja, whose feet were already beginning to sink into the ground. "Come back here! I need to talk to you!"

But he was gone.

Naruto hissed, turning back to Kisame. "Get out of my way."

"Certainly," the ninja said, teeth shining in the sunlight. "You'll just have to make me. Or I'll turn around and kill them all. I've got clones _everywhere._ "

Naruto frowned, narrowing his eyes.

Fine. He'd play their game.

The two broke apart, one flying across the street, the other to the building adjacent.

Kisame leapt back into action before Naruto had a chance to get a decent footing, a simple streak on the foggy skyline, the blur colliding with Naruto just as he moved his lone arm up to protect himself. A rippling shockwave shot through the air, the sound of windows shattering on the streets below, Naruto's body smashing through a row of buildings on the other side of the village.

A bright orange light sparked to life from within the crater, and not a moment later Kisame was flying through the air himself, his sword taking the brunt of the blow from a massive Rasenshuriken. It detonated, a flash of white in the sky expanding into a bubble, then vanishing in a whisper of ozone. Naruto shot into the ground, his body connecting with the gravel street with a sickening _thud,_ Kisame jettisoning off in the opposite direction, making short work of another building.

But then Kisame was there again. He swatted the man's arm away as he moved in for a rough uppercut, swiveling on the heel of his foot to allow the Mist nin to slip past him. As Kisame realized he had been duped, Naruto dealt a swift elbow to the man's ribs, before leaping into the air with a massive burst of energy.

' _Is my chakra normal enough to use…_ that _again?'_ Naruto quickly asked inside of his mind, as he reached the cusp of his jump, and began to descend towards the ground again. He had a plan… but whether or not it would work was… _debatable_. _'It was shaky when I tried it earlier. I still have a few clones that are en route, maybe I can stall—'_

 **"Do you really want to chance it, brat?"** Kurama interrupted. **"Do it! Now!"**

Naruto opted not to argue, and reached deep down inside of himself for the strand of chakra that was not his, and pulled, the string giving no resistance. Immediately, he felt the warm rush of Kurama's chakra wash through his system, his skin flashing to life with a bright white fire that exploded from him like a miniature sun. It was shaky at first; the light flickered like a firefly before it fully ignited, the power palpable on his skin.

He disappeared.

Kisame had enough time to blink before he felt it – the feeling of his ribs, all of them, fracturing into two. He could vaguely sense the wind whipping past his face before he realized he was flying upwards, and was able to acknowledge that he was, in fact, airborne, just before he nearly blacked out when Naruto's shin smashed into the top of his head.

In the fraction of a second it took for Naruto's kick to connect, Kisame's body changed directions so quickly the air crackled in protest. The sound of the shark-nin smacking into the concrete below was deafening, sending a plume of smoke into the air, the sound reverberating for miles.

By the time Kisame came to – _again_ \- a split second later, Naruto was waiting for him, laying blow after blow onto the man's chest, arms, legs – anything and everything that was exposed.

Were it not for Kurama, he may have never noticed the strange tickle at his leg – one that was draining his chakra like a child hungrily drinking a milkshake.

 **"BELOW YOU!"** The fox bellowed inside of his mind, and Naruto was moving again a split second later, glaring at the scaled sword as it writhed around on the ground in ecstasy.

Naruto twitched his muscles and flew downwards again, but it was too late – Samehada leapt in between the two shinobi in a flash of movement, and began to suckle on Naruto's chakra the instant his fist made contact with the blade instead of flesh.

"Augh!" Naruto called out in anger, leaping away again – this time, a decent distance. He needed a strategy – as frequently as going in guns-blazing seemed to work, Naruto had to admit that this time would be different… would _need_ to be different.

He needed to stop and think – back on the time he and Gai fought Kisame off on Turtle Island at the precipice of the Fourth Shinobi War. What went wrong? What went right? What—

Then, Kisame was up again, his wounds healed, his sword in his hands, a sharp smile on his face. He perched himself triumphantly atop the rubble of where the Mizukage Tower used to be, glaring across the street to where Naruto stood. He watched as his opponent's eggshell-white cloak flapped in the wind, golden chakra spitting off of him like a fire throwing flame.

"Well, well, well," Kisame panted, "You are certainly a tricky one."

Naruto narrowed his eyes.

Kisame laughed. "I've learned my lesson. Taijutsu was never particularly my strength anyways, as… _fun_ as it can be."

He tossed his blade up in the air for a split second, giving his hands just enough time to weave through a series of hand seals.

"WATER STYLE: THOUSAND HUNGRY SHARKS!"

For a moment, nothing happened.

Then, _everything_ happened.

The ground began to vibrate, the few window panes lining the streets around them still intact rattling so much that they, too, began to shatter, one by one. The sky darkened, the mountains behind the village blending into the shadows as the wind picked up speed, growing faster and faster –

Two walls of water the size of city blocks rose from the ocean surrounding the village, swirling through the air at Kisame's beck and call, before coalescing in a gargantuan orb of swirling, tumultuous, chakra-infused seawater.

As if someone flicked a switch, the orb froze, compartmentalizing, each segment changing, morphing, shifting –

An instant later, true to the technique's name, a wall of bloodthirsty sharks descended down upon him. Their sharp, all-too-real teeth glistened in what little sunlight that had managed to work its way through the storm, eying their prey with a look that showed no mercy, no acknowledgement that defeat was even an option, only vying to kill, kill, _kill_ –

Naruto froze, eyes wide and calculating, dozens of rapid-fire solutions flickering through his mind as he watched the beasts approach him, moment by moment, inch by inch, tooth by tooth –

He snarled.

Half a dozen arms of golden chakra shot from his shoulder blades, wrapping around the front of his body and reaching into the swarm of writhing sharks. The beasts began to vanish in flashes of heat and smoke as the fists passed through their bodies, blitzes of golden chakra poking through the gaps from moment to moment, as sharks disappeared, only to be replaced a split second later by the next in line.

' _Kurama…'_ Naruto winced, when he felt his control starting to slip. One of the chakra arms vanished in a whisper of golden smoke, disappearing into the twisting swarm of beasts.

 **"I know, brat,"** the beast hissed from within his mind, and Naruto could tell he was concentrating just as hard.

With a determined roar, Naruto clenched his teeth shut and powered through the pain, forcing the lost chakra arm out from his body and into the swarm once again with sheer willpower. ' _Almost… there…'_

Like the eye of the storm, the sharks were finished off, a cloud of steam billowing into the sky, Naruto's golden-lapped body breathing a quiet sigh of relief.

And then it was Kisame again, trying to capitalize on his distraction. He fired off fist after fist, Naruto parrying each time with determined ease, the two shinobi blurring across the Hidden Mist skyline as the scent of vaporized shark hung in the air. Kisame came forward and struck out again, but Naruto stuck his hand out in front of him, the fist connecting with his forearm with a nauseating _crack_.

Kisame flinched when he realized that it'd been his hand that had broken, not Naruto's, as he pulled away from the sheet of golden chakra that burned his skin with a hiss.

He leapt back several yards, chest heaving from the exertion. "That… was impressive," he heaved out between breaths, as he used Samehada to prop himself back up onto his feet again, the blade feeding back into his chakra supply.

"Nothing I haven't seen before," Naruto said, narrowing his eyes.

"Is that so?" Kisame grinned. "No… actually, I don't believe you've seen _anything_ yet."

And then he was weaving through hand-seals again – a slight variation from before. He snarled in glee when the final hand-seal was performed, the water on the floor beginning to pulse and throb on the village streets below.

"You see," Kisame smirked, cracking his neck. "Sharks are much more cunning than most people realize. They are impulsive creatures, sure, and they revel in bloodshed. They give in to their most primal desires, and they kill mercilessly."

The water began to blitz into the air, soaring high above the village, wisps of the fluid spiraling into the sky like miniature tornadoes, roaring like a steam engine.

"That may be true… but sharks are quite clever. They plan, they scheme, they _devise_."

Kisame's eyes lit up like the dead of night.

"And sometimes, they deceive."

Naruto blinked, looking to the sky as the last of the water from Kisame's defeated sharks amassed into a massive orb of spiraling water, more still rushing in from the surrounding oceans like a hurricane. The sky was blackening at a rapid pace, the clouds thundering and crackling with lightning, winds rocking the village from side to side.

The sharks were just a distraction, Naruto realized… too little, too late. Kisame wasn't going for Naruto or the others…

…he was aiming for the _village_.

Naruto's heart leapt into his throat. ' _Obito… you wouldn't…'_

 **"That brat killed your parents in cold blood! His own sensei!"** Kurama snarled. **"Yes! He would!"**

The water wave now stretched from horizon to horizon, fifty… _one hundred_ feet tall. The black abyss that stretched beyond the tsunami was impalpable.

Naruto's eyes widened when he realized just what Obito was planning.

With Yagura gone…

"Oh, yes, how devious of me," Kisame grinned, shouting across the rooftops. "I suppose I'm more a shark than just in looks."

He clasped his hands together.

"WATER STYLE: TSUNAMI DEVASTATION!"

Time froze.

A golden fox, taller than the tallest thing for miles, burst forth from Naruto's body, stretching high into the clouds, white-hot eyes burning in fury.

The beast roared into the blackened sky, as he leaped into the air, stretching his arms and tails out in a frantic attempt to stave off the incoming disaster.

Naruto winced from within the skull of the fox avatar, eyes wide as he watched the water slam into him, barreling towards the city below. ' _I need ideas!_ '

**"Clones! NOW!"**

Naruto obliged. A dozen more Nine-Tails burst into life like crackles of lightning, each taking up position in a line, surrounding the feeble Hidden Mist village like a system of tailed beast levies.

Naruto watched in vain as the water continued to march onward, fear creeping into his gut. This was no longer just about the village. His son and father-in-law were down there, fighting in the village center – Naruto could see them darting around one another from high above the ground.

The crushing weight of the tsunami pressed further forward, and Naruto shouted in rage.

They were losing. It was slow, and it was methodical, but they were losing.

Then, Naruto had an idea, his eyes widening in realization. ' _Kurama…'_

The fox's mouth stretched open wide, and Naruto could feel Kurama's concentration slip for a moment when he, too, realized what his jinchuuriki was doing. **"Naruto-!"**

' _I've got to try something!'_ He shouted inside of his mind, eyes wide and daring.

The fox avatar's mouth opened wide, the power of tailed beast chakra fluctuating through the air like a lightning storm. Orbs, red and blue, manifested out of thin air, orbiting around Naruto's jaw, shrinking, condensing…

The fox avatar leapt forward and swallowed the Bijuudama in one gulp.

A heartbeat.

The bomb exploded.

A bolt of pure power blasted forward from the beast's mouth like a laser beam, the heat and power intense beyond comprehension. Water vaporized, hissing like a snake, the discharge burning a hole straight through before vanishing into the horizon.

Naruto heard his clones elsewhere doing the same, beam after beam of condensed Tailed Beast Bombs firing off into the tsunami, the water held at bay for just a moment's breath.

But still the water came.

Naruto's heart dropped. ' _This isn't working, Kurama!'_ He winced when he felt his control over his Nine-Tails body waver – a consequence of using the Tailed Beast Balls in his condition, he no doubt assumed.

But still he held on.

 **"SON GOKUU!"** Kurama roared from within Naruto's mind. **"We need a barrier!"**

For once, the Monkey King said nothing, opting instead to heed his brother's request. **"Where?"**

' _EVERYWHERE!_ ' Naruto hissed inside of his mind, his feet slipping along the rough coastline as the water wave forced him into the ground.

But still he pushed forward.

He strained again, and two additional sets of limbs stretched forth from the fox's chest, joining the others against the water's ever-pressing advance. **"Give me some clones, boy,"** the Four-Tails rumbled.

Naruto nodded, hissing as he brought his hand to his chest in a seal, the golden chakra fox around him roaring to the sky.

Two dozen more Naruto clones, glowing bright white from the heat of the Nine-Tails' cloak, popped into existence at the base of the avatar, each leaping into action the moment their feet touched the ground. Naruto watched out of the corner of his eye as they fanned out, placing themselves all across the village, like golden blips on a map.

Naruto nodded, gritting his teeth together again. ' _Whenever you're ready, Son G—"_

A heartbeat.

Everything froze.

Eyes wide, Naruto watched in slow-motion as his chakra cloak began to flicker and die out, the white-hot fox beast that surrounded him beginning to dim, his control over the beast's form slipping...

The Eight-Tails. His clones had made it to the Hidden Cloud.

' _K-Kurama…'_ He hissed, feeling as his chakra writhed out of his grasp. The fox was curled in a meditative state, nature energy swirling through the air as he collected it, his eyes slammed shut as he struggled to keep focus.

 **"I know! I'm… working… on it!"** The Nine-Tails hissed out from within Naruto's mind.

Naruto's heart leapt into his chest when the ethereal form of his Tailed Beast dissolved into the atmosphere completely, and he began to topple to the ground, the water rushing in like a hurricane—

The ground rumbled down underneath him, getting closer… closer… _closer…_

Naruto suddenly found himself airborne again.

Kisame barreled into him as he fell, flying in from out of the scene, his massive sword somehow _much smaller_ (curiously) than Naruto had ever seen it…

_SMASH!_

The ground rose up and ensnared him in its sickening embrace, clouds of dust billowing as he bounced across the surface of the village street like a stone on water. He skid to a halt against the side of a small shop on the corner of the market square, his lone hand coming up to brace himself against the wall.

Kisame walked out of the dust like a ghost in the night, smirking wildly, holding his arm to his chest, sword strapped to his back.

Naruto began to rise to his feet, the form of his clones' avatars glowing like suns all around him, the wall of water looking like the blackness of death as the beasts struggled against it, slowly losing ground, the village shrinking beneath the _sheer enormity that Naruto simply couldn't wrap his head around—_

It took a split second, his body reassuring his mind, but Naruto realized that the ground was still vibrating, shaking, _quaking_. The buildings swayed like flowers in the breeze all around him, china and valuables crashing to the ground, terrified villagers moaning in fear from within their hiding places.

Then, it stopped.

 **"Earth Style: Stone Barrier!"** he heard Son Gokuu call out from a corner of his mind as Kisame leapt forward in a blur and struck him in the jaw.

Naruto saw specks of white cloud his vision as the fist connected, his body screaming at him to move. He stretched his senses, eyes flickering across the battlefield wildly, the rest of him moving on its own accord, the instinct of battle forcing him to stay upright and attentive.

They scuttled around one another for a moment, Naruto doing nothing more than humoring Kisame, ducking under punches and sliding out of the way at the last moment. He was acting on the defensive – the longer he kept Kisame out of the fray, kept him distracted, the sooner still he could save the village.

Over Kisame's shoulder, Naruto watched in mild fascination, mild relief washing over him as massive stone walls rose from the ground in front of the clone foxes, the water vanishing behind giant spires of bedrock. He ducked another punch, watching as the massive wave began to disappear.

At first glance, the village seemed to sink into the ground, like a marble sinking down, down, _down_ a drain, the walls rising up and clawing away at the sky. It was slow – _painfully slow_. Naruto vaguely realized somewhere in the catacombs of his mind that even for a tailed beast, such a jutsu must require _astronomical_ amounts of chakra… the speed was most likely a consequence of that.

No matter. He was winning – at least, winning by waging a war of attrition.

"You're… more powerful than you look," Kisame grimaced, clutching at his side again, taking a step back. "So you're the Nine-Tails jinchuuriki. Interesting. I was under…" he coughed, wincing as blood dribbled down his lip, smile still as disturbing as ever, "…under the impression that the Leaf had the Fox."

"You don't look so good," Naruto smirked, hoping that his exhaustion wasn't readable on his face. "Use up too much chakra for that fancy water trick of yours?"

Kisame just chuckled. "Something like that."

Naruto frowned, simply watching as Kisame smiled at him, chest heaving, eyes twinkling.

_CRASH!_

Naruto blinked, mouth falling open as a massive section of the wall collapsed across the village, water rushing past it like a broken dam.

_'What? I don't understand, I thought I…'_

Naruto's eyes widened when he realized what had just happened.

With a snarl, he rushed forward and shoved a golden fist into Kisame's chest—

–the clone's watery form vaporizing on contact.

"DAMN IT!" he roared, leaping to the sky in one massive surge.

He was being played. Naruto wasn't distracting Kisame… _Kisame was distracting him._

 **"You haven't made a mistake that bad in years,"** Kurama grumbled from within his mind. It wasn't teasing, or in bad taste – the fox was just being blunt.

And he was right.

The wall continued to crumble, sections of rock tumbling down the surface of the barrier. The force of the water swept up the chunks of stone and hurled them like projectiles, sweeping into the city, buildings collapsing from the force as the segments pummeled into them.

To his right, on the far side of the Mist, another segment disintegrated, the rushing water behind it exploding through the massive gap.

Naruto watched in anxious fear as the water level began to rise within the village.

' _I've got to use it,'_ he stated inside his mind, although his tone betrayed his conviction. ' _Kurama… I'm going to need your help. All of your help.'_

Naruto could feel the tailed beasts within his mind all freeze, their faces pocked with surprise. **"Surely you don't mean…"** the Hachibi whispered, eyes wide.

**"Brat, you** **_promised_ ** **that you wouldn't. Not unless you had no other choice."**

' _I've fucked this up enough,'_ Naruto said. ' _I doubt I have much more of a choice at this point. Either I use the Sage's chakra, or people die.'_ He narrowed his eyes, watching as more chunks of wall tore off and barreled into the village. _'I'm a Kage. I cannot let that happen.'_

**"This isn't even your village."**

Naruto blinked, moving for a moment into his mindscape, his body moving forwards of its own volition.

When he quickly appeared in the seal room, he approached the ring of tailed beasts and looked up at the third from the left with a shocked expression on his face. "Isobu?"

The great turtle beast took a deep breath, already regretting speaking up. **"Do… do you really care so much for a place that is not your own?"**

"We're shinobi," Naruto said bluntly. "As far as I'm concerned, there are no Hidden Villages anymore."

The Three-Tails paused for a moment, before nodding from within Naruto's mind. **"Alright then. As much as it pains me to admit it, the Hidden Mist has been good to me the past few years. I suppose… I suppose returning the favor is only appropriate."** Naruto felt the beast's chakra flow into his system, the warm tickle of power feeding into his veins. **"You have my support."**

 **"And mine,"** Son Gokuu muttered reluctantly. **"Don't mess this up, kid."**

 **"Oh, alright,"** Shukaku said, rolling his eyes and shaking his head. **"Fine. Just make the evil shark man pay! I hate water!"**

 **"You don't need to ask me,"** Kurama said with a smirk, exhaustion evident on his face. **"And it'll be nice for these freeloaders to help out for once, I'd say."**

 **"I'm going to choose to ignore that,"** the Hachibi said, bending down to look the Hokage in the eye. **"I do, however, agree that you don't even need to ask, Naruto."**

The rest of the beasts nodded.

 **"Yes, Naruto,"** Matatabi purred. **"You are Father's legacy. If you must, you must."**

Naruto gave a timid smile, shocked at the fervent support. "I have to say I'm… well, surprised," he said sheepishly, rubbing at the back of his neck.

 **"When we said you shouldn't use the Sage's powers unless the situation was dire, we meant it,"** Gyuuki reiterated. **"But as far as I am concerned, this** ** _is_** **a dire situation."**

Naruto simply nodded his thanks. "Alright then."

He vanished from his mindscape, refocusing his attention to the shark-shaped blur that was headed right for him.

' _Let's take care of business.'_

* * *

Minato froze, his pen hovering above a sheet of parchment. He turned and looked out the wide, stretching windows of his office towards the horizon, staring off at what seemed to be nothing at all.

It was subtle.

But he felt it.

It was like the beam from earlier that week – only much more muffled, more suppressed _._

And more… _pure?_

Minato watched in abject fascination as a thin fissure, the width of a spider's thread, wove its way down the window's frame, tracing from one corner to the other like a droplet of water.

Then, with an explosive _crack_ , the entire window exploded into a kaleidoscope of fragments, the village behind it morphing into a strange segmented pattern, the horizon gone from view.

Minato flinched. Without realizing it, his hand drifted to his kunai pouch and pulled a single blade from within its contents. He twirled the blade around his finger as he stared, the window looking back… _mocking him_.

Things were about to go bad.

 _Very_ bad.

* * *

Hiashi skid to a halt, the two boys' wrists firmly held between his hands, the rooftop underneath them kicking up shingles and spitting dust into the air as they landed.

"Are you both alright?" he asked, looking back and forth from Hoheto to Boruto.

Boruto nodded, looking to the other boy expectantly.

"I… think so," Hoheto mumbled, blinking in surprise, teetering on his feet once Hiashi let them go. "Actually, I don't feel so good…"

"Oh, now _that's_ a shame," a voice hummed from all around them.

Hiashi spun around, eyes erupting with veins as his Byakugan flared to life. "What do you want with us, Madara? We wish you no ill will. We simply want to talk to you."

Boruto gulped when the masked man neglected to reply, his hands gripping the pair of shuriken they held until his knuckles were white and the tips pricked blood from his skin.

"I can't see him," Hoheto said, his own Byakugan active. "Hiashi-sama, what's going—"

The village began to shake and tremble, people within the buildings around them screaming as if in pain. Boruto gaped as he watched his one-armed father blitz from one side of the village to the other, dancing a delicate, _powerful_ dance around the strange shark man - _Kisame Hoshigaki_ , if he remembered anything from his history courses at the Academy – as they parried, buildings crumbling beneath their feet.

Naruto paused on the rooftop, eyes narrowed.

Then, he _burst into flames._

Boruto yelped in surprise. "Dad?!"

"Your father is a jinchuuriki, is he not?" Hiashi asked emotionlessly at his side, form locked in that of the Gentle Fist's. "Surely you've seen this before."

"N-no, I haven't…" he said, watching with wide eyes as Naruto _vanished_ in what could have only been pure speed, Kisame blasting backwards as the two collided again.

"Tell me what I need to know," Haishi said, interrupting Boruto's inner monologue as it began to marvel at the opponent his father was on the battlefield.

Boruto took a shuriken in each hand, moving so that he was back-to-back with Hoheto. "He can make himself intangible. He's probably hiding in the floor right now, watching us."

A dark chuckle vibrated through the rooftop, almost as if to confirm Boruto's assertion.

"What else?" Hiashi asked, eyes narrowed, hands outstretched as he moved around the two boys slowly and professionally.

"He can make more than just himself intangible— Look out!"

Boruto leapt backward and smashed Hoheto out of the way, Kamui morphing to life around where the boy's chest used to be. He made to move out of Tobi's line of sight as well, but stumbled when he realized his arm was caught in the vortex.

"Shit," he whispered to himself, eyes wide.

The dimensional portal began to expand, the gravitational forces crushing him forward, the blackness _pulling him in_ …

The next moment, he was gone.

"Boruto?!" Hiashi said, eyes wide with shock. He immediately turned to Hoheto, who was just as surprised. "Hoheto!"

"Oh, how charming," Tobi said. "Having a moment, are we?"

Hiashi spun around again, eyes wide when he realized that the masked man was now standing directly behind him.

He hadn't seen him approaching at all.

With a snarl, the Hyuuga struck out, the man's fingertips practically glowing blue, _dripping_ with rage.

Tobi didn't move an inch.

When he felt his fingertips reach their intended destinations, Hiashi almost smiled.

When his hands continued forwards, falling through the man's black-cloaked body as if he wasn't even there, he felt his heart sink to the bottom of his chest. Off balance, he tipped forward and allowed himself to roll through Tobi's body, Shunshining back to Hoheto's side the moment his hands were free once again.

Tobi turned and looked behind himself lazily, pretending to suppress a yawn. "Really? Is that the best you can—"

Hiashi turned and pressed Hoheto into his chest, leaping down to the village square beneath them just as the rooftop detonated, the explosive tag he had placed during his failed attack exploding in a flash of white-hot chakra.

The moment the flash dissipated, Hiashi turned back to where the strange Mist man had just been standing, his eyes searching the smoke for signs of his chakra flow.

"Do you think that did it, Sensei?" Hoheto asked by his side, a kunai pressed hard between his fingers, his Byakugan searching just as desperately as he looked at the rows of buildings around him.

"No," Hiashi stated evenly, eyes narrowing. "That was too easy."

"The explosion passed right through him," a voice said beside them. Hoheto jumped.

Hiashi actually let a smirk flicker across his face. "A clone. I figured as much."

Boruto simply nodded, still staring at the cloud of smoke before them. "Yeah."

"You know, I don't have all day," Tobi sighed from within, his black cloak strolling back into the open air. "I intend to find out what happened to the Three-Tails one way or another, and I don't necessarily need a two Hyuuga and a blond nuisance to do so."

The ground rumbled again as Naruto continued to fight. Far off towards the coastline, a building collapsed to the ground, debris billowing into the air.

"Your village." Hiashi took a step forward. "It's crumbling beneath your feet."

Tobi huffed in amusement. "My village? You're sorely mistaken."

He drifted back into the ground again, his voice carrying across the courtyard. "I could not care less about this pathetic village." Hiashi blinked in confusion as Tobi continued. "What I do care about, however, is the Three-Tails. Tell me, what did you do with it?"

Boruto yelped when he felt the tips of Tobi's fingers begin to wrap around his ankle, leaping to the sky just before his grip snatched shut.

"We can do this the easy way, or the hard way," Tobi said simply, hand returning to the earth once more. "All it takes is one moment… one _split second_ when you aren't paying the utmost attention…"

Hoheto stumbled backwards as he felt Tobi's hand ghost through his own leg.

"Knock it off!" Boruto called out with a snarl, taking a step forward. "Come out and fight like a real ninja!"

"'A real ninja'?" Tobi laughed, the voice gravelly and sharp. "You sound as if you've never seen a shinobi before, let alone fought like one, brat."

All of a sudden, he was there again, a chain twisted around his hands, his posture glaring. "Shinobi aren't valiant. They aren't honorable." He moved forward, marching towards Boruto like the Reaper, until he was just out of arm's reach. "They find shortcuts… _cheat._ "

Boruto pocketed his Shuriken and replaced them with kunai, glaring as he gripped them against his palms.

He smirked. "I know." Boruto stepped forward and plunged the kunai forwards toward Tobi's chest.

Tobi almost laughed. He simply watched as the boy attempted to stab him, confident that the blade would simply pass him through.

His eye opened wide, and he let out a hacking cough as blood twisted its way up his throat.

Boruto let go of the blades, allowing them to hang from within Tobi's chest of their own volition.

Tobi took a stumbled step forwards, grasping at his chest as blood began to seep out from between his fingertips. "H-how…"

Boruto didn't hear him finish. The skies above them darkened, the sea around the village growing choppy and agitated.

Then, there was water.

 _Everywhere_.

Boruto vaguely noted that Tobi had disappeared again, as he regrouped with Hiashi and Hoheto in the village center.

The water flew over their heads, twisting in the air like giant dragons writhing, _dancing_ around one another. He could just barely make out similar spires of water rising from the ocean and uniting above the crumbling remains of the Mizukage's Tower, amassing into a ball the size of the Hokage Monument in the Leaf Village alone.

Boruto watched in amazement as a swarm of sharks burst from the bubble like a popped balloon, and jerked in surprise when he saw his father leap forward, _into_ the swarm, destroying them as quickly as they were formed with what looked to be golden threads of pure chakra.

"Stay alert," Hiashi advised beside him. "We do not know what 'Madara' wants."

"His name's not Madara," Boruto said, sensing the Hyuuga's doubt. "And it's not Tobi, either."

"Then what is it?"

Boruto narrowed his eyes, watching the skyline, trying to ignore the way his heart was thundering inside his chest. He knew that Tobi was listening – there was no other reason they were being left alone. His father had told him of Tobi's _real_ identity the previous day, as well as about the way he fought and acted on the battlefield. Just in case, Naruto had said.

Now Boruto knew why.

"I don't remember," Boruto lied, not caring if his grandfather could tell or not. And chances were, he could. Hiashi always could see right through him. It almost gave him a creepy air about him… despite knowing how much the man loved his only grandchildren. Whenever his parents would drop him and his sister off for the evening on date nights, Hiashi's stoic demeanor would crack _ever so slightly_ , and Boruto, even as a child, could see the way life would flicker back into his opaque eyes.

This Hiashi – this _younger_ Hiashi – still had life to him in spades. It was refreshing.

The village shook once more, the water from the sharks steaming into the air and rushing down the streets as it drained out of the village.

At least, it _would_ have drained, had Kisame not done… _something_.

Now, the entire village looked like it was being hammered with a hurricane, sunlight dwindling to pinpricks between the looming clouds, before disappearing completely. The trees that dotted the streets every few yards swayed so hard in the surging wind that branches began to rip off and disappear into the distance; the rain in the air – it was _raining now_ – slamming into Boruto's face at an uncomfortable rate. Mist, spat into the air by the rain as it connected with the ground beneath them, bit into his skin as he strained his eyes, trying to look for any sign of the strange Uchiha that had them cornered like rabbits.

They sat.

And waited.

Boruto blinked when he realized that the horizon had gotten… darker.

 _Considerably_ darker. So dark, in fact, that it clashed dangerously with the already blackened sky around them.

He frowned, straining to look into the distance. It wasn't night time already… was it?

His heart nearly burst when he realized that the horizon was _moving towards them_.

"What… _is_ that?" he murmured to himself, eyes wide.

Like a crack of lightning, chakra rushed across the market square. His _father's_ chakra. It coated the village in its warm embrace, spreading out like roots from a tree, grounding him… _reassuring him_. A moment later, the bright white light enveloping the Seventh Hokage grew, the warmth increasing, its power growing with each passing moment.

Boruto knew that barely a moment had passed. And his hunch was proven true when he blinked; as his eyes opened once more, a massive golden fox, taller than any building even in the Leaf Village's Financial District, was now standing in place of his father.

The Nine-Tails. Kurama.

"The power of a jinchuuriki…" he heard Hiashi whisper from beside him. Boruto gulped, transfixed. His hand moved to his kunai pouch of its own volition and blindly fished out another kunai, his fingers gripping around the handle as he brought it up to his chest.

Boruto watched as the massive beast stepped forward and attacked the wave head-on, without any hesitation. The Nine-Tails strained against the force of the water, arms stretching out from its torso and forcing as much of it back as it could. But Boruto could tell – even something as massive as the Nine-Tails couldn't hold back a wall of liquid water.

A moment later, a half dozen dots of golden light shot out of the beast – clones, it would seem – and fanned out across the perimeter of the village.

Now there was an entire army of fox avatars, each taking up point across the village, trying as a unit to fight the waves.

Suddenly, each beast began to amass energy, pure and palpable, into spheres of dark light. They grew and grew and grew, each the size of a house, until…

…they _ate_ them?

Boruto blinked in confusion, then in terrified surprise as _literal bolts of white-hot light_ shot from their jaws, blasting into the tsunami like the weapon of some sort of character in one of his video games.

He was starting to wish he hadn't cheated so much in them now.

He was broken out of his reverie by a burst of information rattling around his mind, and he winced as it came flowing back to him unexpectedly.

"Damn," he muttered, loud enough so that Hiashi could hear it over the roar of the storm, "he got my clone. And chances are, he's not gonna fall for that one again."

"We need a plan," Hiashi stated coolly, eyes still scanning the mist.

"We just need to stall," Boruto said. "My dad can take care of him… he's done it before. He's barely older than I am anyways. He's just got the stupid Sharingan and that makes things annoying."

Hiashi blinked. "I _thought_ that's what I had seen…"

"Yeah," Boruto replied. "It's… it's a long story."

The ground began to rattle and shake, Boruto instantly on guard again, his blue eyes darting everywhere he saw movement. The wave continued to march onwards, the quiet hiss from afar of the water surging towards them growing louder, _harsher_ every passing second, the chakra beasts still standing at their positions…

And then, suddenly, one of them was gone – vanished in a whisper of golden mist.

Boruto blinked as he saw a cloaked figure drop from the beast's head, toppling towards the ground…

…just before a streak of blue and black blitzed across the village, sideswiping the figure as he fell.

His father!

"Stay focused," Hiashi reiterated, no doubt watching Naruto's fight and Boruto's reactions simultaneously with his Byakugan active. "Your father is very clearly a capable ninja. I trust in him, and so should you."

Boruto stood up straighter, surprised. "R-really?"

"Of course." He couldn't see the man directly, but Boruto could tell his grandfather was smiling – if only just. "He saved myself and Hoheto's life on more than one occasion this journey, and yours countless more, I'm certain."

"Yeah…"

As if to prove the Hyuuga's point, the rumbling roared even louder, the village buildings around them straining under the stress. Then, massive spires of solid bedrock rose from the earth, growing by the moment, the _second_ , blocking the water more and more with each rumble of the ground…

Explosions rocked the newly-constructed dam, the tsunami cascading through the holes like a massive waterfall.

The water level within the village began to rise.

"What do we do now?" Hoheto mumbled beside Boruto from a few paces to his left, his voice wavering ever so slightly.

"I dunno." He turned to give the boy a smile and a thumbs up in reassurance – he could tell he needed it - but felt his heart drop from his chest when he noticed Tobi's head reemerging from the earth, a kunai propped in his outstretched hand, the blade zipping forwards faster than he could move, _how did he get there so quickly—_

"Hoheto!"

Boruto acted faster than he thought he could, doing the only thing he could think of.

He aimed his kunai directly in front of Hoheto, and prayed that the blades would intersect.

Tobi was on the move now, suddenly much closer, his hands reaching outwards towards Hoheto's neck even as his weapon hung in the air, the fingers _stretching closer and closer…_

CLANG!

The two kunai connected just millimeters from Hoheto's heart, the blades falling to the ground in one heap as Tobi leaned in, hand closing around the boy's throat—

Just before he disappeared in a flash of gold and a crack of ozone.

Tobi recoiled in surprise – or was it _disgust?_ – when he realized what had just happened, his feet sinking into the earth in one moment, gone the next.

Then Hiashi was there, pale-faced and sickened, as he stared at the lone kunai – _Tobi's_ kunai – that sat where Hoheto used to be, arriving just after… whatever it was that had just happened.

"What happened?" Hiashi and Boruto said at the same moment, Hiashi's question more urgent and worried than Boruto's.

The blond blinked, looking down at his palms, when realization struck.

"He gave it to us for a reason," Boruto said, repeating something his father had told them just that morning. "He… he saved him."

"Who? Who saved him? Where is Hoheto?"

"The Fourth Hokage," Boruto said, a smile beginning to grow across his face. "He… he must have reverse Hiraishined Hoheto back to the Leaf."

He let out a sharp laugh in relief, before the knot in his stomach began to ease just a little.

Hoheto. He would be alright.

And now the Fourth knew they were in trouble.

_They would be alright._

It was only later that Boruto realized just how wrong he was.

* * *

It only took a moment for the walls to be fortified once Naruto held the Sage of the Six Paths' chakra in his hands.

"Okay, guys, are you ready?" Naruto said out loud, eyes narrowed at the wall as it crumbled underneath the pressure of the water and Kisame's repeated attacks. As he said it, the shark-nin struck again, and the north section of the levy burst like a balloon, water spraying inwards at an alarming rate.

 **"Do it, brat,"** his resident tailed beast called from within his mind, and he nodded.

When he reached inside of himself this time, he found _nine_ strands of foreign chakra dancing about within his body. He reached forward with a single hand and gathered them together like a bushel of straw, pulling them all to the surface with one mighty tug.

Instantly, he felt his senses expand outward in all directions. The world sharpened around him, as if he had taken off the blinders of everyday life, and everything became more understandable… more _focused._

He watched as the south side of the wall began to crumble to dust as well, and knew he had to act – and quickly.

Using his lone hand, Naruto gathered every chakra type he could get his metaphorical hands on into a tight orb, the power manifesting itself in small ball of multiple colors as it swirled through the air, condensing into a perfectly round, impossibly black sphere.

He did this four more times, each time the mental energy required to complete the Truth-Seeking ball growing more and more taxing as his concentration began to waver.

He still had too much chakra. But at least now he could manage it better.

Three clones appeared behind him at mental summons, and each clone took a sphere and headed for the edges of the village. Naruto himself moved forward towards the north – he could sense that was where Kisame was returning to, if the streak of chakra was anything to go by. He leapt from building to building, hovering slightly from time to time to adjust his course, before landing gently beside a large willow tree, the ocean's rapidly rising water lapping at the roots like a cancer.

Naruto looked up at the wall – it stretched _at least_ fifteen stories tall, if he had any sense of scale whatsoever – and frowned at the pockmarks that lined the exterior.

With a snap of his fingers, the Truth-Seeking ball that had taken up residence just over his shoulder shot forward, expanding outwards into a small disk, growing thinner and thinner and wider and _wider_ every centimeter it travelled. When it connected with the levy, it began to stretch across the surface, layering the barrier in a solid-black coating, the holes disappearing one by one.

He could see his clones mirroring his actions across the village from him, black painting the interior of the village wall, the water finally stopping its relentless barrage.

Kisame was suddenly there again, his chakra-infused blade lashing out at the now nearly impenetrable barrier. Naruto flinched at first, worried that it wouldn't hold – it couldn't have been more than a millimeter thick at its heaviest – but the material refused to budge, much to his relief.

Kisame snarled as Samehada bounced off of the Truth-Seeking ball harmlessly, and he attempted to correct himself midair before landing awkwardly across a battered road (that looked more like a river now) from Naruto. They both turned to stare at one another, the sky still black and imposing above them, the quiet hiss of water lapping at the buildings below them barely audible over the dying roar of the winds.

"Why?" Naruto said, eyes shocked… _sad_. " _Why_ are you doing this?"

"Because…" Kisame panted, heaving in lungfuls of air, "Because Lord Madara promised me power. Influence. A way to make my mark on the world."

"But do you have to destroy the Mist village to accomplish that? Can't you grow and become who you want to be on your own?"

Kisame grinned. "Oh, sure. But Madara's way is easier. And faster."

His eyes flashed an unnatural silver for a moment, the light catching them ever so slightly. "And fun, of course. Let's not forget that."

Naruto sighed, shaking his head. "Kisame… you could have been so much more. You were a genius… a once in a lifetime swordsman, and the only person just short of the Second Hokage I'd call a master of the water element." He blinked in reminiscence, looking at Kisame's (shaking) feet. "You… you have morals. Respect for those you fight. Respect for yourself, and for those that are above you… as few in number as they are."

He took a step forward, his chakra 'cloak' glowing an unnatural white.

"You can _still_ become the person you want to be. Just not this way."

He extended his arm, offering a handshake. Naruto's eyes looked up into Kisame's and dug themselves in, their fierce gaze holding him captive.

Kisame blinked, looking down at the blond's hand, before back in his face.

Resilience. Rugged determination.

 _Hope_.

Kisame saw it all in Naruto's eyes. He saw himself, a younger Kisame, sitting in the ninja academy at the tender age of ten, watching the jounin spar in the fields below from high up in his window seat. He saw himself, standing before the Mizukage, the day he graduated, a brand new katana held shakily in his arms. He saw the way the man looked him in the eye with a smile – _that trusting, disarming smile …_

The same smile. Naruto had the same one.

"You're a Kage, aren't you?" Kisame wheezed, gripping at his chest, eyes wide in realization. "Yes… you have to be. No other man I have ever met has had quite the same… _look_ as the Third Mizukage." He blinked. "You… you're Minato Namikaze."

"No," Naruto said, a small grin growing on his face. "Although I appreciate the compliment. My father was one of the greatest Kage ever to walk the Earth."

Kisame raised a hairless eyebrow, whispering Naruto's words back to him. "Your father?" He blinked. "' _Was'?"_

Naruto gave a sad smile. "Kisame, you are a good person. Maybe clouded by the world you were born into, but I truly believe that." He sighed, eyes glazing over. "I truly believe we could have been comrades had our lives been just a bit different."

Kisame frowned at him – the first time Naruto had ever seen the man do so. "You realize that can never happen, right? I've already accepted who and what I am." He looked up, taking a step back – away from Naruto's still outstretched hand. "You should probably do the same."

The jinchuuriki watched as Kisame stumbled away from him, before realization struck him across the face. "You're… you're _dying._ "

"Hmph," Kisame grunted, his telltale smile surfacing across his face once again. "Figured that out… all on your own?"

"That tsunami jutsu…" Naruto turned to look at the walls surrounding the village, amazed at just _how much chakra_ Kisame had most likely used to create a threat as threatening and mind-numbingly powerful as he had. He looked at Kisame's side, at the once mighty shark-toothed blade that rested there between the man's trembling fingers. It was barely thicker than a broadsword now, the scales looking frail and brittle even from as far away as Naruto stood.

"You know… were we anywhere else, that jutsu wouldn't've worked," Kisame smirked, eyes glassy and unfocused. "And were I fighting anyone but a jinchuuriki…" He coughed, the sound wet and sickening. "I got a bit carried away. Lord Madara wanted the village gone, and I wanted to… to try it… I was certain it would… work…"

Naruto blinked. "Why? Why did Tobi want to destroy the Mist?"

Kisame's shoulders slouched forwards, blood gurgling up from his throat and dribbling down his front, his smile still unmoved. "Yagura… Yagura dead... village crumbling anyways… worthless excuse…"

The man's eyes rolled back into his head, and he fell forwards onto the rough concrete of the rooftop below them in a crumpled heap.

For a moment, Naruto just looked down at the man's body with wide eyes, lingering shock running through his veins like a thick slurry.

Kisame. The man who was barely seventeen, dead from his own hubris.

His mind screamed at him… _raged_ from behind his stupefied surprise, chastising him. This was a _major change._ All of this was a _major change_. The village being destroyed, the Tailed Beasts being separated from their rightful places in the timeline… Yagura's death.

He hadn't meant to, but the entire time he had been travelling to the Hidden Mist, Boruto by his side, his mind had been compiling a wish list of sorts – things he wanted to go back and change from his past… from his world's past.

Prevent casualties. Save lives, and reduce the bloodshed.

But with each crushing bout of sudden realization, Naruto could feel as each one was crossed off, either by fault of his own actions since arriving, or simply due to the fact that he knew he shouldn't… _couldn't_.

Meddling with the past was not an option.

Kisame may have died, but it hadn't been in vain after all.

He made up his mind, just as Kisame's body erupted in a brilliant blue flame, the fire licking desperately at the sky. It roared into a seemingly uncontrollable inferno, the force pushing Naruto back on his feet, his lone arm rising up to block the light from his eyes.

Then, just as suddenly as it had appeared, it whispering away – leaving nothing behind but a charred husk and the shards of Samehada that had somehow survived the intense heat.

Naruto's eyes steeled. He watched raindrops hiss as they landed on the rooftop, their numbers increasing by the second until the entire village was suddenly doused in even more water - natural water this time, but water nonetheless. He could feel the imposing wave around the village begin to dissipate back into the ocean, and breathed a sigh of relief.

Then, he heard a whisper from across the village – a battle.

His heart nearly stopped when he remembered the others.

He took the sky, feeling for the warm blur of chakra that could only have been his son's.

They still had a plan to follow.

* * *

Boruto winced as he leaped backwards, landing hastily in the courtyard center before jumping forwards again, dodging Tobi's chains just as they slashed across where he had just been standing not a nanosecond before.

Then Hiashi was suddenly there, lashing out at the masked man's chakra points as he himself recovered from his failed attack on Boruto. But Tobi was already transparent, body dipping downwards into the earth as Hiashi spun on his heel.

They were being worked to death, it seemed – but Boruto felt slightly better now than he did before. Hoheto was no longer a liability; as much as Boruto had grown to actually enjoy the other boy's presence, even he had to admit that he simply wasn't skilled enough. Not in a battle where one's attention had to be focused on one thing and one thing only.

Boruto swiveled in place as he felt the whisper of a kunai jetting through the air prickle at the hairs on the back of his neck. Sure enough, the blade passed through the air just above his head as he ducked, falling forwards onto his stomach only to push himself into the air with one massive burst of chakra.

He was not, however, prepared for the explosive blast when the kunai detonated, sending shards of rock and sand towards him faster than he could have ever hoped to dodge.

"Augh!" he hissed as he felt his back rip open, a few sharp husks of stone slicing across his skin underneath his clothing.

He stumbled to his feet, moving back toward Hiashi as quickly as he could, the man turning and raising an eyebrow at his bloodied back.

"Are you alright?"

Boruto just nodded, moving beside Hiashi and pulling his last kunai from his pouch.

"Madara is playing with us," Hiashi said coolly, as he looked out over the suddenly deathly quiet courtyard with his Byakugan active.

"Yeah," Boruto said, wincing as he rolled his shoulders and returned to his previous stance. "Dad should be here soon, I don't know what's taking him so long…"

"The rumbling has stopped," Hiashi noted quietly, and Boruto suddenly realized that he was right. The ground was quiet, and the water that had been rushing past the crumbling barrier was now being held back by a strange black substance that coated the wall like some sort of omnipresent shadow.

The sun was beginning to peek its way through the black clouds, and the low hum of the ocean returning to homeostasis behind the levy began to overpower the wailing of the dying wind.

A fog began to creep in.

"We are, after all, in the Hidden Mist village," Boruto heard Tobi chuckle from nowhere in particular, as the mist grew denser and denser – like a thick soup. "It is only fitting that this be the way that I kill you."

"Kill us?!" Boruto blurted, his heart accelerating to unmanageable speeds. "I-I thought you were going to take us hostage or something, y'know! What happened to wanting information?"

"I grow tired of playing with my toys," Tobi said simply. "Besides… if the Nine-Tails truly believes he can stop me, then let him try."

Silence.

Boruto could feel _something_ moving behind him, but when he swiveled around in terror to defend himself, he saw nothing.

That's when he heard what sounded like a mild explosion go off behind him, only to find his father standing inside of Tobi, who had his hand outstretched towards him – _dangerously_ _close_.

"You alright?" Naruto said quietly, before narrowing his eyes at the ground where Tobi had returned. "Am I too late?"

His eyes widened when he spotted Hiashi, but no one else. "Oh… oh no…"

"Grandpa Minato took him," Boruto quickly blurted out when he realized what – or, rather, _who_ his father was talking about. "Hoheto's back in the Leaf."

Boruto watched his father's black-cloaked shoulders sag forward slightly in relief. It wasn't hard for him to tell that his father was fatigued – whether it was physically or mentally, Boruto was unsure.

Naruto looked up and into the fog, his eyes morphed into a strange four pointed star pattern. "Come out, Tobi. We just want to talk."

No response.

"He's been doing this to us since you left," Boruto murmured to his father, as he moved to Naruto's side. "I don't know what—"

"ROTATION!"

Boruto jumped when he spotted Tobi's masked form attempt to grab Hiashi's arm, just before the man erupted into a sphere of swirling blue chakra. The fog within their field of view began to churn and spin along with Hiashi's jutsu, the air clearing up once more.

Once the fog disappeared, Boruto blinked when he saw Tobi sitting amicably atop an overturned stone in the center of the courtyard, watching them with a bored demeanor about him.

"You wanted to talk?" he asked simply, not bothering to move.

Naruto took a step forward, his chakra-infused cloak billowing behind him as he walked. "Tobi…"

"My plans didn't originally call for any of this, you know," he said evenly, his arm dangling over his raised knee. "I was simply going to manipulate the Three-Tails, and subsequently this village, until they had outgrown their usefulness. The fact it happened so quickly is a shame, of course, but it couldn't be avoided."

Naruto sighed, taking another step forward, his chakra cloak slipping from his body in a whisper of light. The black coating on the walls around the village evaporated into the air like they were never there, leaving behind the battered and pitted stone surface underneath. The setting sun peaked through one hole in particular, casting dark shadows across the town square, and sunlight everywhere else.

"I take it Kisame is dead, then?" Tobi began again. "Shame. Although I can't say he outlived his usefulness."

"Why are you so quick to destroy this place?" Naruto hissed, eyes fiery. "Thousands of people are undoubtedly injured now, all because you wanted to put on a show and get me to play my hand. So tell me – why? What do you want?"

"What do I want?" Boruto couldn't see it, but he was certain that the man was grinning underneath that mask of his.

He leapt up from the rock. "I want you, Nine-Tails jinchuuriki."

He chuckled. Boruto heard a rustling of movement from behind him, and tore himself away from Tobi's ominous showdown with his father to see what was happening.

"And the easiest way to do _that_ is to go through the hearts of your friends." He laughed, then – an outright, evil, maniacal laugh.

Then, he disappeared in a puff of smoke…

…just as a sickening squelch echoed through the courtyard.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading, everyone. And for giving me time to finish this. This chapter is not shy of its fair share of problems (I rewrote it FOUR TIMES), but still: I hope you enjoyed. I appreciate it - seriously. :)
> 
> (Also WOO I REMEMBERED TO POST THIS TIME)
> 
> Love you guys,  
> -Endo


	13. Chapter 13

_If all are taught to slow and stay;_  
_To tread an even track -_  
_The guiding hand that leads the way  
_ _Is all that holds them back._

Sam Garland

* * *

The thing about death in battle, Boruto learned later in life, was that it was not the glorious display of heroism he thought it was.

It was fast. Undramatic.

 _Clinical_.

Time slowed down.

Naruto stood off to the right, leaping forward, his hand outstretched, mouth open in a silent shout. Boruto himself was motionless, kunai held to his chest, eyes still fixated on Tobi.

And then there was Hiashi.

Boruto watched as the kunai burst through the front of his vest, bathed in red, the sound of fabric tearing and skin twisting under the pressure lost to his ringing ears. Senses blinded, the world fuzzy in his periphery… nothing else mattered at that moment. It was like a movie – a silent film, a black and white haze. The camera locked on his grandfather's body as it began to sink to the earth, shifting only to follow it as it fell.

Frame by frame, the movie rolled on.

Tobi let go of the blade.

Naruto took another step, eyes widening in realization.

Boruto flinched.

Hiashi took a strained breath, comprehension flickering across his face, blood beginning to soak through his clothes.

He hit the floor.

He rolled to the side.

The light faded from his eyes.

And then?

Then…

It was like somebody flipped a switch – the world returned to normal. Time sped up, everything rumbled back into focus.

The movie stopped, the color returned.

Boruto saw red.

The blood.

He blinked, tears smearing his vision into a dissonance of color before he could make out more detail.

A blur flashed across his line of sight.

"OBITO!"

He was too late.

* * *

It happened like a snap of a finger.

The ember sparked in the woodwork.

He saw the burst of the knife.

A flame ignited, roaring in hunger.

Hiashi dead.

Fury - fire coursing through his heart.

"OBITO!" he called out.

He would pay.

* * *

Obito stood still as stone.

Naruto shot forward, quick as a whip, smashing his lone arm into Obito's right shoulder blade.

It tore right off.

The limb skittered on the ground several yards away, the strange eggshell-colored substance that held it together dripping onto the pavement like dyed blood. A part of Naruto's mind reminded him that it was the same material that _his_ prosthetic was made of, but he was too enraged to think all that clearly at the moment.

Obito howled in pain as his shoulder was ripped out of place, ruby-red blood seeping from the wound and dripping onto the earth as he stumbled forward, gripping at the hole where his arm once was with his other hand—

Naruto moved again. He mentally summoned a clone to watch his son and tend to Hiashi, then grabbed Obito.

They were going to have a nice, _long_ talk.

Naruto shunshined them away - it didn't matter where. They found themselves on a deserted street, standing half a block from the charred husk of a building that used to be the Mizukage Tower. Naruto spun and shoved the Uchiha, watching as the teen toppled onto the ground, rolling for a moment before he bumped into the curb on the side of the road.

"You know? I thought you were better than this," Naruto began, pacing, teeth gritting together. He talked more to himself than Obito, who clutched at himself on the ground, still in shock. "I expected that some part of you – the part of you that _saved the fucking world_ – would maybe be around, even now."

He narrowed his eyes and loomed over Tobi's body. "I guess I was wrong. Again."

Then, he kicked him.

_Hard._

Naruto could hear Obito's gurgled cough, and vaguely noted that the teen had probably just vomited up blood inside of his mask.

"Take it off," Naruto growled, before bending over and undoing the orange spiral from Obito's face himself.

One lone, terrified Sharingan eye stared back at him, framed by long, unruly black hair and scar tissue that stretched across the right side of a still-pubescent face.

Naruto moved to kick the boy again… but _something_ stopped him.

He froze, looking down at Obito with a frown.

A boy stared back.

A boy, no older than fifteen, beaten and defenseless.

A boy, lost in his way, fearing for his end.

He had come to terms with the fact that all of his actions, no matter the size, would have an impact on this world's future, that was certain. But that didn't justify his actions, even now. He was a father, not a torturer - regardless of his anger.

It wasn't who he was.

A bubble of guilt rose from his gut, and he shook his head when the rage subsided and allowed for cool, calm reason to return to his mind.

"I trusted that you wouldn't be an idiot, Obito," Naruto sighed, turning around and rubbing his hand to his eyes. "All I wanted to do was talk to you. But now look where we are."

"Wh…" Obito tried to speak, then grimaced and began to hack again once the first syllable left his lips. "Who… _what_ are you?"

"You killed him, Obito," Naruto stated, turning once again. "He was my father-in law."

* * *

When the blond man's gaze met Obito's, the teen froze.

The rage in those eyes – _why did they look so much like Minato-sensei's?_ – had been replaced with cool disappointment. It was almost more painful to see than the anger… because at least with the anger, Obito could sense what was coming next. He had been on a team with Kakashi for long enough to understand _that._

But disappointment? Indifference? _Cold_ rage?

Obito took a deep breath, trying to assess his options. He still had Kamui. He could make an escape through the ground and meet back up with the others if he had to. And judging from the faint tugging at his consciousness that was warning him of the fact he had lost a significant amount of blood, he would have to decide pretty quickly: risk dying of _that_ , or die almost certainly by the hands of the blond man – the _jinchuuriki_ , he reminded himself _–_ that was suddenly on an _entirely different level than he was—_

"Don't even think about using Kamui," said man stated coolly, narrowing his eyes. "I can track you down, wait for as long as it takes for the jutsu to expire, then grab you again." He cracked his neck. "And believe me, you do _not_ want that to happen."

"How…" Obito began, completely flabbergasted. This man – the only person short of Madara Uchiha himself that had been able to catch him off guard and _seriously_ wound him since he had left the Leaf village – knew his secrets. His name, his abilities…

…to a shinobi, that may as well have been everything.

Obito shuddered as he realized his odds of making it out alive began to dwindle.

But strangely, the man didn't strike him again. He instead seemed to be talking to himself, muttering and prowling, his hand never leaving his eyes.

It was strange, really, seeing someone leave themselves open to attack in such a manner. It was either a generous amount of stupidity, or a sense of quiet confidence – of _superiority ._

For some reason, the sickening feeling that grew in Obito's gut seemed to indicate the latter.

"Wh… what do you w-want with me?" Obito said, cursing himself mentally for stuttering. He was supposed to be the heir to the mighty visage of Madara Uchiha, and there he was, cowering in the dirt on an empty street, all but begging for his life.

The man sighed, and turned to look at him. The size of the bags under his eyes surprised Obito, but he hid it well, instead trying his best to keep a sensible-enough, very much _Uchiha_ scowl on his face.

Judging from the way the blond raised an eyebrow at him, it wasn't working.

He felt helpless.

 _'That's because you are,'_ a part of his mind seemed to tell him, but he ignored it.

"What I want with you?" The man blinked for a moment, his bright blue eyes closing for a fraction of a second before opening again, exhausted. He walked over and sat down next to where Obito lay, resting his chin on his hand, staring off into nothingness between his feet. "I want… your help."

Obito blinked his lone eye. Help? From _him?_

"Help?" he repeated, out loud this time, not entirely sure what was happening.

"Yeah. I need— _we_ need your help. But now…" he paused for a moment.

Then, he jerked upright – as if having sensed something. "Shit! Not yet! He can't know yet…"

Obito blinked in confusion as the mask was hastily slipped back over his face.

"Obito," he said, and the boy couldn't help but look up at him, as if instinctively obeying the man's implied demand.

He was surprised when the blond's eyes were almost desperate. "Meet me at the gravesite one week from today. You know the one I'm talking about. Midnight. Don't bring anyone."

Obito blinked. "What? Which… what are you…? A gravesite? A week?"

He didn't get a response. Just at that moment, a crack of ozone erupted across the street from them, and Naruto took several steps back, looking at him indifferently.

"What's going on? Who is this?"

Obito's heart twisted in his chest at the newcomer's voice.

"He's the one that started all of this," the blond man's voice stated plainly.

"He… he was the one?"

Obito strained to lift himself from the curbside, twisting his neck in an attempt to catch _one glance_ —

"Yeah."

A shock of blond hair – long, unruly, _all too familiar_ – entered his field of view, and Obito's heart lurched in his chest.

It seemed that his… _desensitization_ to his old life hadn't quite worked as well after all.

"What's the plan?"

Obito blinked when he noticed the way the Fourth Hokage's sharp, accusing eyes tore into his mask, ripping away at the material, _edging closer and closer and closer to the truth—_

"We're leaving. He's dying, I don't expect him to live more than thirty more minutes."

 _That_ wasn't true.

Obito frowned. Was the older man… _protecting him?_ Letting him escape?

 _'Idiot, of course he is,'_ that ever-present (and ever-annoying) side of Obito's mind that seemed to know all the answers piped up, ' _Didn't you hear? Next week. He knows you'll make it out alive. You're_ supposed _to.'_

"You're just going to leave him here?"

Obito could tell Minato-sensei was _furious_ … simply because of the way he held zero emotion in his voice.

"I don't like leaving survivors."

Cool. Clinical. _Precise_.

Just like always.

Obito watched his old sensei from the corner of his eye. He tried with every fiber of his being to see past the rage - searching in the dark for the kind, fatherly man that looked just the same.

Instead, he found himself forcing the rest of his dwindling chakra reserves into his Kamui eye as fast as he could channel it. Minato's blade passed through his dematerialized neck in a fraction of a second. It was just a glance - the twitching of a wrist - and Obito had known what would come next. Had he not been under Minato's tutelage for the better part of 3 years, he would have died - helpless, alone, and afraid.

Obito sank into the ground as Minato recovered. His heart pounded in his chest, his lungs heaved air in and out of his body, his neck went lax from the strain.

As the cool embrace of the earth swallowed him whole, Obito began to think.

The fact that the other blond - the older one - hadn't moved an inch told Obito everything he needed to know.

The man did not underestimate him.

Nor should he the man.

He needed strategy. And, as much as he loathed to admit it, firepower.

He needed help.

And there were only three people he knew that could pull it off.

* * *

Naruto sighed, relieved. Tobi was gone, vanished into the earth not a moment too soon; Minato had leapt forward, eyes fierce and enraged, and slashed his kunai through the air just after the boy dematerialized.

If only he knew who laid behind the mask.

' _He will eventually… just not now,'_ Naruto reminded himself, before turning, the buildings wrapping around the streets towards...

A pang of guilt wrapped around his spine, down his throat, across his ribcage.

"Where do you think _you're_ going?"

Naruto stopped, and took a deep breath, collecting himself.

Everything was falling apart around him, and he just wanted the nightmare to _end_.

"Back."

"Back _where,_ exactly?"

Naruto felt a hand slam down on his shoulder, and it took everything in his power not to spin and counterattack – his battle instincts were primed and trigger happy.

Instead, he simply reached up and brushed Minato's hand aside. "I'm going back to the Leaf."

"Yes, you are," Minato said, narrowing his eyes. "Because you and I are going to talk. And then you and your son are going to go away – for a long, _long_ time."

Naruto let out a dry, humorless chuckle, and simply began to walking, his feet guiding him along. "Heh. Is that so." His mind was foggy, vision unfocused - and the journey gave him far too little time to collect his thoughts, because before he knew it he was standing in front of his son, looking down at the frozen boy with a grimace on his face as Boruto quaked, motionless, kneeled before the body of a man all too familiar.

Minato simply chose to follow behind, silently, watching Naruto's every move.

But Naruto didn't care.

He looked down at his son, down at his father-in-law, at the pool of blood they were both laying in, Boruto's hand gripping Hiashi's shoulders as if hoping that the contact would bind his soul to the land of the living for _just_ a moment longer, desperately.

Tears mingled with the blood beneath them.

Naruto blinked the moisture from his eyes, trying his hardest to stay strong – for Boruto, for Hiashi…

…for himself.

There was something about the Hyuuga's body, splayed out on the ground, that unearthed memories from a life long, long ago. A life of pain, of fighting, of desperation. Of war, of struggle; of _sacrifice._

He blinked again, eyes shifting to his son.

The product of one such sacrifice.

He reached out with his hand – cursing, _damn_ himself for shaking so much – took Boruto by his shoulder, leaned down to his level, and pulled him in.

Boruto was totally still at first, eyes still hazed and unfocused, Naruto holding him into his chest in an almost awkward manner.

For a second, a gut-wrenching, painful second, Naruto thought Boruto would block him out – force him away.

But his son surprised him.

Like always.

Boruto slammed himself into Naruto, gripping at his father's shirt, burying his face in it. A choked sob broke the silence.

Naruto ran his hand down the boy's back, and he rested his cheek on Boruto's head; blond hair obscured his vision with each hiccup, Boruto's heartbeat thundering against his own chest like hammers to a nail.

They sat like that for what felt like years.

The clouds parted above them, the setting sun once again shining through the mahogany sky for a for a brief respite, before it dipped past the horizon and dropped the entire village into the throes of twilight.

A lone streetlamp, the only one still standing for blocks, flickered and hummed, the light dull and inconsistent. Naruto watched as it struggled to gain purchase in the blackening sky, its luminescent influence barely a pinprick against the backdrop of stunning starlight.

But as time rolled on, as Boruto's tears began to dry against his chest, the light stabilized… _strengthened._ So much so, that by the time that his son began to sniffle and twitch in his arms, it was a roaring dissonance of light and insects and _hope._

Naruto blinked when he felt Boruto's breathing stabilize, and he lifted his head up.

To his surprise, Minato had been busy; Hiashi's body had been bagged and set aside – presumably for easy transport. Now, the Fourth Hokage was simply standing there, the wind whipping his cloak like a lion behind him, running rough fingers through his hair.

For the brief moment before Minato realized he was watching him, Naruto saw a look of sadness – _empathy_ stretched between the man's cheekbones.

But as soon as Naruto made to stand once again, Minato's expression steeled. Naruto pursed his lips and turned back to Boruto. He knew what his father was going through. Being forced to feign anger and contempt in a situation where anyone but a leader would stretch out an open hand of peace and support and _understanding_ was one of the Hokage's less glamorous obligations.

Too bad he rarely followed it.

"Come on," he whispered to Boruto, pulling him to his feet with a gentle tug.

He turned to Minato next, trying to hide the dull ache in his heart from the Fourth Hokage's prying eyes. "Let's go."

"Yes, _let's_ ," Minato said coolly, taking a step forward.

Naruto ground his teeth as he watched Minato throw the body bag over his shoulder, thoughts of the future - their _immediate_ future churning his stomach. He clenched his hand into a shaking fist when his father moved towards them, and he promised himself things would change as Minato grabbed both his and his grandson's shoulders, the cold embrace of the Hiraishin whipping them across space and time.

* * *

Sakura sighed.

No changes.

The green wisps of medical chakra faded into the dark, silent hospital air as Sakura finished her evaluation. She leaned back into a standing position, stretching her spine as she looked both Naruto and Boruto over one last time before calling it a night.

_No changes._

' _Damn him for leaving us high and dry like this,'_ Sakura thought to herself as she leaned over and pulled the hospital sheets across Naruto's still body, watching as his breathing pushed them up, then down, then up again. ' _But at least they're still alive.'_

She moved over to Boruto's bed next, running her hand along the boy's blond-concealed forehead, frowning at how cold he was. ' _For now.'_

She heard the sound of rustling from behind her, and spun on her heels, before slumping forward and letting out the breath she hadn't realized she had been holding. "Hinata. You scared the daylights out of me."

The woman blinked once, then twice, sitting up from where she lay in one of the several chairs that lined the nearby wall. "Oh, did I startle you? I'm sorry."

She set aside the thin blanket that had been covering her as she stood, taking care to fold it before moving to Sakura's side.

"You gave _us_ quite the scare earlier, you know," Sakura said, turning back to the two Uzumaki in the beds before them. "I don't think you've fainted that badly in a long time."

Hinata just 'hmm'ed, an embarrassed smile gracing her lips. "Well, can you blame me?"

Sakura smirked. "I suppose not."

They sat in comfortable silence, watching Naruto's rhythmic breathing as the machines around them beeped quietly.

Hinata leaned forward and freed her husband's hand from beneath the confines of the sheets, turning it over in her own. "Where is everyone else?"

"Lord Sixth and Shikamaru are with Ino at the ANBU headquarters, last I heard," Sakura said. "Lady Tsunade went home a couple hours ago."

Hinata nodded silently in acknowledgement.

Then, she jumped. "Wait, where's Himawari? She's not here?"

Sakura turned. "No, she's not. She's at my place right now – Sarada is watching her for the time being. I hope you don't mind."

"Oh, not at all," Hinata said. "I really appreciate it, Sakura."

The other woman just harrumphed, and batted a hand. "Oh, please. You watched her all the time when she was Hima's age. Consider us even. You don't have to worry—"

"No, not about that," Hinata interrupted, turning to her with a small smile. "Although I do appreciate that, too, now that you mention it. No, I'm talking about… everything you're doing here." She squeezed her husband's hand. "Thank you. For everything."

Naruto squeezed back.

Both women froze.

"Was… was that…" Hinata said, eyes wide. "Did he—"

"I saw it too," Sakura said, paling. She began to move her hands over Naruto's head, the light of her diagnostic jutsu layering the bed in an eerie pale glow.

One of the machines on the wall started to chirp and whine, and its counterpart on the other side of the room – Boruto's sensor, no doubt – began to screech as well.

"Sakura, what's happening?" Hinata asked.

"I don't know – this hasn't happened before! I thought it was just unstimulated nerves firing, but this…" She ran her eyes across the wall of the room, reading the data the small glowing computer screens were spitting out. "…this looks like _activity_."

Sakura felt a bubble of hope resurface from before, where it had delved deep into the recesses of her heart.

There was activity. It was small, and relatively insignificant, but for a pair of presumed brain-dead, comatose patients, it was monumental.

Sakura flew across the room, pulling a computer screen down and tapping away at a keyboard, calling up a series of fluctuating graphs. "I'm getting EEG data again!" She squinted her eyes as the numbers oscillated wildly across the screen, her heart beating in her chest. "I… I think they're waking up!"

Like the flip of a switch, everything went dark again.

Naruto's hand went slack in Hinata's grasp, and she gasped. "No… no, come on, Naruto! Come back!"

Sakura let out a sigh as the computers began to flash red with error messages and disconnect warnings, and she slumped back against the wall, trying to ignore the wall of machinery that seemed to chastise her for not working fast enough. "Damn. That was close."

The bubble of hope from before grew when she realized something. "Wait a second…" She pushed off from the wall and marched to the door, pulling off her labcoat and slinging it over a chair. "Hinata, can you stay here and watch them?"

"Of course, I was planning to anyway," the woman said, watching Sakura slip through the doorway with a questioning frown on her face. "Sakura, what's happening? Where are you going?"

"To find the others," the kunoichi replied, a bright smile on her face as she darted out into the hallway.

Hinata raised an eyebrow as she heard Sakura call out behind her, her voice fading as she ran.

"If it happened once, it can happen again! We just need to find out why!"

* * *

The Hokage's office lay silent, the ticking of the clock on the wall echoing through the empty room. The chair at Minato's desk remained shoved backward from his hasty departure, his scroll-covered desk long forgotten. The desklamp shined for no one, a haze of warm light casting shadows across the room. Figures of black danced along the walls and over the bookshelves, the outline of a nondescript rug in the middle of the room drawing no attention as the light moved onwards, its presence barely whispering across the floorboards. Four portraits, stoic and unmoving, watched over the room as the clock continued to tick, tick, tick—

Then, as quick as a bullet, the room erupted in a crack of sound, four bodies appearing on top of the rug…

…one far colder than the others.

Minato said nothing as he made his way across the room, completely unfazed. A small scowl hid his true feelings from view, his eyes hollow and unforgiving.

The chair was fished back into place, and Minato stood behind it, leaning across its back and staring at the other two shinobi that had yet to move from their spot on the rug.

"Explain yourselves."

Boruto gulped, eyes still red and puffy. Naruto stole a quick glance down at his son.

He reached over and wrapped his hand around the boy's shoulders, trying to comfort him in some small way. The next few minutes were not going to be easy for either of them.

Minato's eyes erupted in fire, but he remained otherwise immobile. "I asked you a question. It is in your best interests to answer it."

Naruto froze. "This was never my plan. I didn't intend for Hiashi to—"

"To die?" Minato nearly laughed, his voice incredulous. "You _didn't intend for Hiashi to die?_ Is that what you were about to say?"

Naruto steeled himself, standing straight. "No. I am not your enemy, believe me."

"And why _should_ I believe you?"

"Because I'm just as angry that Hiashi died as you are!" Naruto hissed through clenched teeth, eyes enraged. "Don't try and tell me that I did it on purpose, because that would be _despicable!_ "

"Despicable? _Despicable?_ Let _me_ tell _you_ what despicable is!" Minato nearly yelled, his voice raised for the first time that evening. "Despicable is starting a battle you _knew_ you couldn't handle. Despicable is killing a jounin – no, a _clan head_ – due to your negligence. Despicable is letting the _killer_ escape like that!"

"He has been taken care of," Naruto said hastily, taking a step forward towards Minato's desk. "Look, we need to talk, but not about this."

"I shouldn't've done it," Minato nearly whispered, eyes narrowed. "I never should have trusted you. I had assumed that having your own child on the line, you would be more careful and wouldn't overstep any boundaries, but it would appear that I was wrong."

Naruto blinked, flabbergasted. "What? What are you—"

"You destroyed an _entire village,_ " Minato stressed, turning from the desk and walking towards the window, pointing out into the twinkling lights of the bustling night life of the Leaf. "Do you see that? _That_ is what you… your _leadership_ just destroyed. You destroyed _someone else's_ Leaf village."

"Don't _you_ lecture me on how to be a leader!" Naruto roared, taking a step forward. "Do you think I didn't know the risks? Understand just what was at stake? That village… that could have been my village! I _saved_ it, damn it! Don't try and say I did otherwise!"

Minato froze, his mouth thinning into a fine line. "Who the hell are you, anyways?"

Naruto let out a short laugh, shaking his head in exasperation. "That depends – are you going to let me speak this time?"

"You _dare_ insult me?" Minato whispered, his nostrils flaring, eyes blazing. "You _dare_ insult the man that rescued you from what was likely to be a rather long walk off of a short pier?"

He whipped his coat out of the way as he reached into the pouch strapped to his thigh, ripping a kunai from within its contents. He brought the blade up in front of him, the polished metal throwing even the smallest amount of light across the room.

Minato paused, his expression blank once again.

"I have every right to and can easily justify killing you right where you stand, you know."

Naruto just pursed his lips, biting back whatever sharp response he had for that.

Instead, he took another step forward, and looked up at the ceiling, neck exposed, letting out a long, deep sigh.

"Do it."

Minato blinked. "I'm sorry?"

"I said, 'do it'," Naruto stated emotionlessly. "You're right, you know." He looked back down, meeting Minato's gaze head-on. "I… I've been too caught up in the details to realize what I was really doing. I nearly allowed a village to be leveled in the first place… that's not acceptable. Not for someone like me."

Minato said nothing.

"I take responsibilities for my actions. And that includes apologizing for speaking to you in such a disrespectful manner, Lord Fourth." He bowed – it may have only been a small gesture, but it was his way of being cordial. "I understand your anger. And it's justified. Please, if you intend to kill me for my inabilities to perform as both a leader… and… as a father…" He sighed again and closed his eyes, "…then I respect your decision. Do it."

There was a moment as his eyelids closed, a serious moment, where Naruto thought he saw a flash of blond move towards him, and he realized that Minato had called his bluff. His own father would be his undoing.

' _Ironic, in the grand scheme of things_ ,' he thought to himself with a condescending chuckle.

But he blinked again, and realized that it wasn't Minato that had moved…

…but _Boruto._

"Stop it," the boy said between gritted teeth. " _Stop it!"_

His hands shivered as he stood between the two Kage, eyes darting from one to the other, fierce determination barely triumphing over utter grief.

Naruto let out a long sigh, and he ran his hand through his hair. "Boruto…"

" _No, dad!"_ the boy shouted, eyes filled with fire. "We're not doing this! I'm tired… I'm tired of just running from everything!" His eyes wavered, and his posture slipped. "Or everyone," he said quietly. "Please. We need to tell him. And now. He's important for our plan anyways, right? To get home? So… why are we waiting, y'know?"

Minato raised an eyebrow.

"Boruto…" Naruto began, a sad smile on his face.

"Would you stop treating me like a baby?!" Boruto shouted again, turning his back to Minato, fists clenched. His tattered cloak flashed behind him, and for a moment… _for a fleeting moment_ Naruto saw himself.

Memories flushed over him, and he closed his eyes, taking a deep breath, listening as his son talked.

"Please, dad. Just… just tell him. We need help. I want to…"

There was silence, and Naruto opened his eyes enough to see that Boruto was choking on his words, tears building up in the corners of his eyes again.

"I want to go home."

It was a whisper, barely louder than the ticking of the clock.

Naruto didn't know what to say. What to _do_. Boruto was right; things were looking bleak, and they were running out of options.

Several moments passed, where Boruto fidgeted in place, and Naruto sat and thought to himself. The clock continued to tick.

Someone cleared their throat. Naruto and Boruto both froze, surprised, when they realized there was still a third person in the room with them. Minato had moved back across the room and had sat back down again, watching them speak from atop steepled fingers at his desk.

He had a… _look_ on his face. His eyes were unfocused and trained towards the rug in the middle of his office, as if reminiscing, and he looked pained – like his mind was battling his conscience for superiority.

Naruto watched him for a minute.

"You want to say something."

Minato blinked, surprised at the statement, then sighed. "I don't want to be rude."

"That never stopped you before."

Minato leaned back in his chair, running a hand over his eyes. "Thirteen days."

Naruto frowned. "What?"

"Thirteen days," he repeated. "It's been thirteen days since I took this office. And it's been nothing but one bad mistake after the other. One of the village's most prized jounin is dead, a Hidden Village has been practically wiped off the face of the planet…"

He paused. "This… all of this has been a nightmare. I'm still operating under a jounin mentality, not one of a Kage."

He rose from seat, taking several slow steps back to the long, angled windows of the Hokage's office. He leaned on the frame of one, taking a long look out into the village below them.

"I'm going to have to explain this, you know." His voice went quiet, breath pooling on the glass. "I'm going to have to go out there tomorrow and explain this to the village, to the _Hyuuga_ … plan a funeral… make a speech…" He balled his fist. "It shouldn't be necessary. At all."

"And yet here we are," Naruto said.

"Yeah," Minato said, turning again. "But despite all of that… despite what's happened… some fault lies with me." He chuckled once. "Well, most of it, actually."

Naruto blinked. "I'm sorry?"

Minato gave a small smile. "No, _I'm_ sorry. I haven't treated this situation the way it should have been handled in the first place, and… I let my emotions get the better of me. I apologize for threatening your life - that is not how I want my administration to lead." He moved back across the room and carefully lowered himself back into his chair, sighing and straightening his neck. "So let's start over."

Naruto took a deep breath and closed his eyes. "Alright."

Minato motioned towards the pair of seats across the desk from him, and Naruto steered both himself and his son towards them.

"Tell me what happened," Minato said carefully, folding his hands and leaning forward a bit. "And don't lie to me."

Naruto paused before speaking, glancing at his son for a brief moment.

"Dad…" The boy said before Naruto could begin. "We should probably tell him about… _you know._ "

"Tell me about what?"

Naruto grimaced. "Boruto…"

"But we need Grandpa's help!"

Minato blinked. "Grandpa?"

Naruto and Boruto blanched.

You could hear a pin drop.

"I'm not that old, you realize."

Naruto watched as Boruto deflated in his chair, obviously relieved that Minato hadn't realized what he had said was true.

He sighed. Well, now was as good a time as ever.

"No, it's true."

Minato frowned, eyes darting back and forth from Naruto to Boruto, back to Naruto. "What? You realize I don't have children, right?"

Naruto gave a sad smile, looking down at the desk in front of him. It was a different one than his, he realized. Which made sense, considering the destruction of the village by Pein's hand undoubtedly took this one with it... and that wasn't even considering the number of desks Tsunade went through after the fact.

"It's happened already, right? You've made the suggestion?"

Minato looked at him, confusion wreathing around in his eyes.

Naruto smiled painfully, and stretched his hand out to touch the wooden surface in front of him. "For the name, I mean. Jiraiya's book _was_ always your favorite, y'know."

Blue eyes dug into his skull, wide as saucers. "How… how did you…"

"Did you think it was a bit… odd that someone named 'Naruto' fell into your office?" the Seventh said. "With the same hair color as you?"

He looked up and met Minato's gaze. "Same _eye color?_ "

Minato's mouth moved, but no sound came out at first. But it seemed he was able to reel in his mind enough to start speaking, because a stream of words began to spew out of him faster than his body could process then. "Yes, of course I did, but- It's not impossible that other people have blond hair or blue eyes, of course, and… And, well, there are others in the village that… they could have maybe?"

Naruto shook his head. "I thought so. You've had your suspicions since the beginning, I could tell."

Minato floundered. "Are you… are you honestly saying…"

Naruto's heart thundered in his chest – had he ever been this nervous before? His mind, still terrified of doing something irreversible, argued with his conscience, weighing the consequences against the rewards in split-second, hair-raising anxiety.

As Naruto felt his palms grow sweaty, he froze, remembering something very important.

He was _Naruto_.

To hell with consequences.

He cleared his voice, sat up straight, and gave a small smile.

"Yeah. I'm your son."

* * *

"So, you're the one I've been hearing all about the past few days."

Three jumped in her chair. She swiveled in place, turning towards the door of her 'cell', and watched as a strange man in a creme-colored cloak lumbered his way inside. His grey hair – _or was it silver?_ – poked out in all directions, and she found herself marveling at it.

The ninja from this land were very strange indeed.

"I… yes," she said after a moment, unsure of how to answer.

"Ahh. Well, it's nice to meet you..." He moved in front of her and held the end of his sentence like a fishing lure.

"My name is Three," Three said.

"Nice to meet you, Three. My name is Kakashi."

The silver-haired man pulled a chair from the other side of the room and sat down, taking care to not make too much noise.

They watched each other for a few moments, Three growing more and more uncomfortable as time went on.

Then, finally, Kakashi spoke.

"You're bald."

Three blinked. Well, he certainly was blunt.

She opened her mouth to respond, as was appropriate, but something about him – something _curious_ stuck out to her.

"Your eye," she muttered, narrowing her own. "It is… different."

Kakashi did nothing to indicate he had heard her – until, of course, he responded. "Yes, it was a gift."

Three frowned, watching Kakashi's face with resigned fascination. His eye… it was glowing, spitting waves of heat like hot stone on a summer's day, the waves rippling, _distorting_ in the air. The pupil, grey and relaxed, faded to a sharp red, then back to grey.

When she blinked, it was gone.

"What do you see?"

Another voice snapped her out of her reverie, and she watched as the woman from before – the kind one, with the blond hair – closed the door behind her.

Kakashi turned, beaming. "Ah, Ino. Pleasure of you to join us."

Ino returned the smile. "Figured you could use the help, Lord Hokage."

Three blinked, muddled. "Hokage?"

Ino turned questioningly, then realization lit up her face like a lightning bug. "Oh! Yes, you must be confused. Of course. I would be too." She moved further into the room, pulling up a chair next to Kakashi's. "This is Kakashi Hatake. He is the Sixth Hokage of the Hidden Leaf, our village leader."

" _Retired_ village reader," Kakashi corrected, raising a finger from beneath his cloak.

"Err, right," Ino said, raising her eyebrow. "Well, unfortunately due to Naruto's… _incapacitation,_ you're all we've got." She chuckled. "You should have seen the way Lady Tsunade reacted when Sai tried to get her to come do it. Nearly took out half a city block."

"Somehow that doesn't surprise me," Kakashi mused. "I'm happy to do it, of course. But only so long as the Seventh gets his hat back at some point."

"Agreed," Ino smiled, turning to look back at Three's mildly flummoxed face. "Now, you said you saw something?"

"I…" she paused, turning to look back at Kakashi's face. Nothing was there."It... has passed."

Ino watched her, eyes cool and steeled, as if disbelieving at first.

Then, she shrugged. "Alright, then." She sat down, reaching behind her to the small metal table and grabbing the clipboard that rested there. "So, Three! Tell us what you can about yourself." She waved a pen in the air for a moment, thinking. "Anything at all that might help us out… abilities, conditions, that sort of thing."

Three froze. She most certainly had… _abilities_ , but they were village secrets. No, more than that – they were _family_ secrets. There was a reason her teammates knew nothing of her status, despite being from the same village.

But now, she was in a deep underground holding cell. Her arms were unrestrained, and she could move freely and stretch and meditate, but it was still a cell. And no amount of smiles from her blonde interviewer could change that.

Only she could.

"I am not sure… I am allowed to say," Three began, twisting her legs under her cold metal chair and struggling to find the right words to say next. "But… for my own wrongdoings… I will anyway."

Ino shared a look with Kakashi and shrugged. "Okay, fine with us. Anything that you tell us will be marked classified, though that shouldn't even need to be said. You don't need to worry about anyone else finding out."

Three sighed, twisting her fingers in her bright white shirt in apprehension.

"Why don't you start with where you're from? Your village, your family… you have parents?"

Three took a deep breath. "My… my father was killed when I was just a girl – he passed in his sleep. I do not know my mother."

Ino's face softened. "Oh, I'm sorry."

Three ignored her and continued. "I was named Three for my father. I was his only child – the only one able to take his place."

"What place would that be?" Kakashi asked.

"I… am to become village leader when I grow older," Three said, barely above a whisper. She couldn't stand to look up at them.. "And then, when the time comes, become One."

"'Become one'?" Ino repeated, confused.

"Yes," Three said. "My grandfather. He is One. I am Three. My father was Two."

Ino scribbled something onto the clipboard. "That sounds strange. Why are you named after numbers?"

"Most likely a translational issue," Kakashi said. "In their language, it means something much more personal. Am I correct?"

Three shook her head. "No, not so much. My life has been ordained since I was born. I am to become One. There have been several Threes before me, and I will not be last. Our village has operated this way since the Great One, and it has done us well."

"The Great One," Ino repeated. She turned to look at Kakashi. "Is that the Sage of Six Paths?"

"Sounds like it," the man replied, leaning forward, eyes narrowed. "Your Great One – can you tell us about him?"

Three couldn't help but smile, remembering her days with her father, memories of walking through the forest and telling stories of their ancestors. "He was a kind One – full of love and devotion. His actions still guide us today, even now." She blinked, recalling the paintings that lined the roots of the large tree in the center of the village. "He was a man, once, as I am a woman now. But nature claimed Him, and Antari made Him One."

Ino continued her frantic scribbling, before looking up with a lopsided frown. "Antari?"

"Our village," Three smiled. "You call us the Village Hidden in the Sea. But to us, we are of Antari."

"That reminds me of an old language from the far west," Kakashi murmured. "We learned it in ANBU because it was obscure and ancient enough to be used as an emergency code. That word in particular, though, is familiar. ' _Antariksh_ '."

"What did it mean?"

Kakashi narrowed his eyes, eyes still locked on Three. "It meant 'distance'. At least, in the context of what ANBU was using it for." He took out his book, then, eyes moving away from her. "So, Three. Where is your 'Great One' now?"

"Kakashi-sensei?" Ino asked, not following.

"I am not sure," Three said. "It is said in legend that He became One with the trees - their shadow. He vanished into their embrace, and went on a grand voyage – across the great seas." She smiled. "Maybe He came here!"

She faltered when she sensed the sudden tension that had enveloped the air.

"Does that sound like who I think it does?" Ino said, eyes wide, voice quiet.

Kakashi snapped his book closed and turned to her again, his two sable-silver eyes prying into Three's own. "Tell me, was your 'Great One' black? A solid black? With golden eyes?"

Three sat up straight, incredulous, a grand smile on her lips. "So you _do_ know of the Great One!"

* * *

"Zetsu," Shikamaru grumbled, steepling his fingers on the table in front of him in the observation room just beside Three's. The other two sat across from him. "Their village founder was Black Zetsu."

"That answers _that_ question," Kakashi said. "We never knew where he was when his two brothers were off fighting the Ten-Tails, but Three's story makes sense."

"He was on an island by himself for several thousand years?" Ino said, skeptical. "Why was he there?"

"Does it matter?" Shikamaru said with a sigh. "Naruto says that when Kaguya was attacking, she called the world her 'nursery'. Maybe Black Zetsu was building her a perfect place to live once she returned?"

Ino narrowed her eyes. "Shikamaru, you've never been one to overlook details. They could be important."

Shikamaru blinked, and gave a passive shrug, sticking an unlit cigarette between his teeth. "That's true. But until we know more – more about what's wrong with Naruto and Boruto, for one – I'm operating under information triage. I've got enough to handle as it is."

"Regardless, we need to find out what this means," Kakashi interrupted, leaning forward onto clasped hands. "Three is a descendent of Black Zetsu. She knocked Naruto and Boruto out with nothing more than a blink. There is probably a correlation between those two – somehow."

"Yeah, Shikamaru said. "This whole mess is… well, a mess. And the sooner we can figure it out, the be—"

"Would you get off of me! I'm a jounin of this village, and I'm here to see the Sixth about something very pressing!"

The three shinobi froze when they heard the sound of someone familiar come thundering down the hall, their voice slowly gaining volume as they marched – loudly – towards Three's room.

"I'm sorry, ma'am, but the Hokage—"

"That's why I'm here, damn it! Now make like an egg and scramble before I do it for you!"

Sakura burst into the observation room, her hair askew, eyes wide and excited. An ANBU attempted to force his way in behind her, but she slammed the door shut in his face. "They woke up."

Everyone in the room leapt to their feet in an instant, making towards the door, when Sakura sighed and held up a hand. "Just for a moment – they're not awake anymore."

Shikamaru sighed, slinking back into his chair. "Ugh. And here I was, genuinely excited that this nightmare was finally over."

"Well, we may not be out of the woods yet," Sakura said proudly, "but this at least proves to us that they're still in there. They're _alive_." She smiled. "And if it happened before…"

"It can happen again," Kakashi finished, eyes sharp. "Good work, Sakura." He paused for a moment, thinking. "Shikamaru, pack your bags. Ino, go tell Sai he had better figure out a way to tell Tsunade what she'd rather not hear."

The Seventh's assistant raised an eyebrow, sitting up in his chair. "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

"Yeah," Kakashi said. "I think it's high-time we paid this mystery village a visit, don't you?"

* * *

**OMAKE**

"Tell me what happened," Minato said carefully, folding his hands and leaning forward a bit. "And don't lie to me."

Boruto waved his hands like a ghost. "OoooooOOOOhhhhh~ We're from the future!"

Naruto facepalmed. "Boruto, just because we're from the future doesn't make us ghosts."

"OOoooOOOoooOOOH!"

-oOo-

"That won't happen," Naruto said, stonefaced, as they sat on the ground within his mindscape three days earlier. "And if you even _think_ about doing that, I'm giving your sister all of your ramen privileges from now until you _both_ are jounin."

Boruto rubbed at his neck. "Whaaaat? Maybe a joke will make it easier for Grandpa Minato to understand we're from the future, y'know!"

Naruto narrowed his eyes. "We are _not_ telling the _Fourth Hokage_ we're from the future by pretending we're ghosts. That doesn't even make sense."

"Have you even _seen_ a ghost before, Dad?"

"Actually, yes."

"Wait, really?"

"Yup."

Boruto blinked, surprised. "Wait, who?"

Naruto frowned. "Well, a few… but one of them _was_ my dad, now that I think of it."

"AHA! So it DOES make sense!"

-oOo-

"Tell me what happened," Minato said carefully, folding his hands and leaning forward a bit. "And don't lie to me."

Naruto opened his mouth to speak, but suddenly grimaced.

Then, he belched.

Boruto looked over at Naruto with a dirty glare. "Dad. Gross."

-oOo-

Naruto shrugged. "What? I've been a bit gassy the last few hours. It's not unthinkable, y'know."

-oOo-

"Tell me what happened," Minato said carefully, folding his hands and leaning forward a bit. "And don't lie to me."

Naruto stared. "Are you sure?"

"Yes, of course."

"Truly sure?"

"This better be an excellent truth."

"It may just kill you."

"Bring it."

"Well then…"

Naruto told Minato his life story.

Minato said "Holy shit."

He died from a heart attack.

-oOo-

Boruto rolled his eyes. "Dad, isn't Grandpa Minato, like, twenty-seven?"

Naruto blinked. "So? Heart attacks are the silent killers, Boruto. You should know this by now."

"Awww, don't go into another heart health rant again, Dad…"

"When was the last time you ate whole grain, Boruto?!"

-oOo-

"Tell me what happened," Minato said carefully, folding his hands and leaning forward a bit. "And don't lie to me."

Naruto opened his mouth to speak but then paused.

He let out a grunt, a gasp and then clutched his gut, closing his eyes.

Minato's jaw slackened.

Boruto's jaw went agape.

Naruto looked up, eyes red. **_"I am really tired of all this bullshit. Okay, Fourth. Here's the dealio - "_**

Boruto blinked. 'Dad, your whisker marks…"

'Naruto' laughed. **_"The better to intimidate my enemies, brat."_**

Boruto pointed. "Holy shit, you're the - "

The blonde glared. **_"Do not curse in front of your father!"_**

"You're not my dad! You're Kurama!"

Kurama sighed, long and deep. **_"You're my son too."_**

Boruto blanched. So did Minato.

**_"Sorry Fourth, I will need to give my son the Bijuu Talk."_ **

-oOo-

"KURAMA, STAY OUT OF THIS! WE'RE PLANNING HERE!"

**"What? I'm bored."**

-oOo-

"Tell me what happened," Minato said carefully, folding his hands and leaning forward a bit. "And don't lie to me."

Suddenly, Kushina burst through the glass window, swinging on a rope like a chimpanzee-

-oOo-

"No. Let me stop you right there."

Boruto flopped onto his back. "Awww, come on Dad! That's _totally_ possible!"

" _No._ "

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Love you guys! Hope you enjoyed the omake.  
> -Endo


	14. Chapter 14

'When I was young,' my father said,  
'And younger still than you -  
My summers seemed to stretch ahead  
In shades of skylight blue.

 _'The warmest air was twice as fair_  
Beneath the tops of trees -  
Content to wait without a care;  
To sit and shoot the breeze.

'But sooner summers slipped to fall,  
And still, I couldn't see -  
They hadn't really changed at all.

_It wasn't them, but me.'_

Sam Garland

* * *

_"There are no coincidences in our line of work."_

But it was impossible. Minato _knew_ it was impossible.

_"Coincidences exist for a reason."_

He couldn't have a son. He _couldn't have a son_. He was barely twenty-four years old. This man had to be at least in his late thirties.

_"A blind ninja is a dead ninja."_

Minato leaned forwards, elbows gripping the desk, and cupped his face in his hands. "That's…"

_"Never forget that, Minato."_

There were three distinct possibilities for what was happening: Minato had already counted them off in his head. The first, and most plausible, was that this man was playing him – _again._ They were assigned a mission from another village (perhaps Hidden Stone) due to how much they looked like Minato, and were given the preposterous task of drawing… _something_ out of the fledgling Fourth Hokage that would no doubt come back and bite him in the ass.

Minato frowned. Perhaps the circumstances were incorrect, but the main theory itself seemed plausible. He mentally set it aside for later, moving on to the next in the list.

Possibility number two was slightly less realistic, but Minato included it in the list anyway. His week had been unbelievable enough as it was, and hesitance in times of danger lead to death.

He knew this first-hand. Thoughts of Obito fluttered through his mind, and he grimaced.

The second theory was that this man _wasn't_ his son, as he had claimed: but was, rather, a distant relative. Once more, a knot of worry twisted upon itself from inside his gut. Perhaps theories one and two were linked – these two blond shinobi were related to him, _somehow_ , and it was that very fact that made them even more dangerous than normally so. As unlikely as it might be that he had relatives hidden away in the bowels of the Elemental Nations, it was something that begged to be considered.

Minato shuddered.

The final possibility was the most alarming.

This man – _Naruto_ , he reminded himself with a frown – _was_ his son. He was here from… wherever it was he had come from, and had wreaked havoc on his life purely out of some sort of spiteful rage.

Or perhaps he was just an idiot.

The circumstances of his arrival were details that needed to be buffed out, of course, but for the time being, he had a place to start should the theory become more than just that.

He desperately hoped that it wouldn't.

"Uhh… Grandpa?"

Minato jolted in his chair.

"I…"

He coughed into his hands, blinking hard. "You do realize… that is impossible for me to be your, eh, _grandfather_."

His 'son' grimaced in front of him, and reached his hand around to behind his neck, scratching it. Minato tried his best to ignore the fact that the act was familiar - _too_ familiar. "Well… it's the truth. And I'm an idiot for not just saying this sooner."

"Are you…" he froze again, mind working through subtheories like clockwork. "Are you a clone? An experiment gone wrong? Some sort of genetic mess?" His eyes slammed into slits, and he curled his fist into the desk. " _Orochimaru._ "

Naruto jumped in his chair, before shaking his head in a frantic motion. "No. No no no no. Heh, yeah, uhh… no. Not that. Definitely not that."

Minato raised an eyebrow. Now _that_ was suspicious.

Naruto took a deep breath. "Look, that snaky son of a bitch is just as frustrating to me as he is to you."

"He's more than just a nuisance," Minato said. "He left the village less than two weeks ago with half the village after him, the Third Hokage himself included. He is now, as of last Thursday, an S-class missing-nin."

Naruto's eyes widened, and Minato mentally smiled. So he _did_ have some sort of positive connection to the snake.

_Bingo._

But Naruto's next words wiped the slate clean. "We're that far back?"

Minato blinked, raising an eyebrow. "What?"

"I didn't…" Naruto's eyebrows ascended to his hairline, and he began to look around the office, as if trying to find some sort of secret message, or hidden clue. His eyes found the clock, and he appeared to zone out for a moment in thought. "Shit… I should have paid more attention."

Minato's mind began to work through the other blond's cryptic – and erratic – train of thought, and said train slammed into him at a rather unpleasant speed when the pieces began to fit together.

_"There are no coincidences in our line of work."_

A disbelieving smile crossed his face. "You can't _honestly_ expect me to believe you're from the _future_ , can you?"

Naruto's eyes locked onto Minato's, wide and startled. "That's exactly what I'm saying."

" _No coincidences."_

"That's impossible."

"Yeah? Well, here we are."

Minato furrowed his brow, his fingertips darting up to his scalp. "No. I've tried before myself – done the math, ran tests… all of it. I spent half a year of my life…" He let out a short breath. "There is no way—"

" _No coincidences, Minato."_

He winced.

There was a possibility – there was _always_ a possibility. His tests _had_ been thorough – the Hiraishin wouldn't have been perfected in the manner that it was otherwise. But nonetheless…

Naruto sighed before him, and slinked back in his chair, arm dangling over the edge of the armrest like a limp puppet. "I guess I should start from the beginning, huh?" he chuckled, blinking back exhaustion. "Well, I'm honestly not all that sure why we're here – just that we are. Let me get that straight before I say anything else."

"You… don't know why you're here?" Minato questioned, raising an eyebrow. "Let's consider for a moment that you _are_ telling me the truth. Are you honestly saying that you ended up back in time _by accident?_ "

Boruto looked up at Naruto, then back to Minato. "Well, I guess it wasn't our fault? Like, that weird girl with no hair I fought in the finals was acting kinda strange right before all this happened, and—"

"Weird girl?" Naruto said. "You mean the Hidden Sea kunoichi? She looked like she was about to faint at the end of the match, but I guess I assumed that was because she had no combat experience?" He furrowed his brow and looked down at the desk in front of him, eyes unfocused. "Hmm, I really haven't had much time to process things since we got here…"

Minato just looked at him. "I think that's pretty safe to say. You literally fell into my office and have been running around ever since – if what little I've been able to figure out about you is actually what happened."

Naruto murmured in affirmation. "Heh. I'll say." He ran his hand across his forehead, grimacing when he pulled back dirt and grime and salt. "I haven't had time to take a decent shower in nearly three days."

Minato snorted, feeling the same unpleasant sticky sensation on his skin. Then he blinked, frowning. "Back on topic," he said, redirecting the conversation. His hand twitched towards his pocket to grab another kunai, but instead he leaned forward and plucked a pen from his desk surface, twirling it around between his fingers as he talked. "You said something about a Hidden Sea village? I've never heard of that village before. And Chuunin Exams? You mean the ones set to be hosted here in December?"

"No," Naruto said simply with a shrug. "And the I'll be totally honest with you – I probably know just as much about the Hidden Sea village as you do. I was planning on making a proper trip to their village after the Exams to meet their elders and set up some sort of concrete trade agreement, but…" he blinked the fogginess from his eyes, the dull nature of the conversation lulling him to sleep even as he spoke. "Well, I _can_ tell you what little I know about them, I guess. They're a small island way out past the Land of Lightning…" he frowned, scanning Minato's desk surface, before turning his neck and glancing at the bookshelves that lined the back walls, unpacked boxes staring back at him. "Do you have a map I can borrow? Just a simple one of the Elemental Nations'll work."

Minato blinked. The man had just showed his back to someone whose intentions remained unclear. Was it in ignorance to Minato's power?

Or was it from confidence in his own?

He set aside that thought, reaching down and pulling open a drawer in his desk. After digging for a moment, he found his prize: a slim scroll from the back corner, and Minato clicked the unit closed as he slid the map open before Naruto. "Here you go."

"Ahh, great," Naruto said with a small smile, and used his good hand to point to a place in the middle of the ocean, to the southeast of the Hidden Cloud village. A small calligraphy dragon, tail swirling across the bottom of the page, sat half on the spot he pointed to. "It's somewhere around here. We didn't find it until last summer, when a science expedition stumbled upon it."

Minato raised a brow. "The Hidden Cloud village in your… _time_ lets you operate so close to their shores?"

Naruto snorted. "Oh, of course. Why wouldn't they? Although this map is out of date – a big portion of the beaches in western Lightning country are gone now anyways."

Minato gave Naruto a look. "Ahh, I see."

He didn't, of course, but instead chose to let the blond man talk. All the strange tidbits of information Minato had gathered since Naruto had blasted his way into his office were swirling around in his head, and he itched at the thought of cracking the puzzle set before him.

The pen in his palm spun faster.

"Well, anyways, they've been disconnected from the Shinobi world for a long time now," Naruto continued. "Some of our historians say maybe since before the Sage. But I honestly wouldn't be so sure about that."

"You certainly seem to know your stuff," Minato said, narrowing his eyes. The two (more plausible) theories from before were beginning to rear their ugly heads. "Are you some sort of political consultant in the… _future?_ "

Naruto simply gave a wink and a smile. "Something like that."

"You've talked a lot, but none of this is verifiable," Minato said with the twitch of his eyebrow. "As _opportunistic_ your time travel theory is, I simply can't credit it as any more than a silly story without some sort of hard evidence. That is, after all, what theory means."

Naruto frowned, the shadows behind his eyes darkening under the low glow of the desk lamp. "I can understand that. I just wish there was a way for you to believe me."

When Minato raised a finger and began to open his mouth, Naruto cut him off. "And no, no Yamanakas either. I'd rather keep this between the three of us for now, if at all possible."

Minato narrowed his eyes. "You realize that you have no say in this matter, do you not?"

Naruto gave a chuckle, then leaned back in his chair again, resting his head. "I thought we were past all of this."

"No, we are _not_ ," Minato stated, snapping the pen between his fingers. "Hiashi Hyuuga is dead. If you are in _any way_ responsible, due to negligence or otherwise, you _will_ be prosecuted. We're not friends now all of a sudden because you claim to be my son." He leaned back in his chair, staring at the ceiling. "Do you have any idea how ridiculous that sounds? Imagine that coming from me. Would _you_ believe me?"

Naruto opened his mouth to retort, when the door to Minato's office burst open, and a rather disheveled redhead flopped into the room.

Minato jumped. "Kushina!"

He was at her side in an instant, brushing her sweat-logged hair from her forehead and resting the back of his hand against her skin. "Are you okay? You look like you just ran a marathon."

Kushina batted her husband's hand away, and jumped to her feet, eyes darting around the room. "What? No, I just…" She glanced at the body bag sitting against the wall, then let her gaze fall onto the pair of blonds sitting rather uncomfortably in the chairs by Minato's desk. "Here, I made you lunch," she muttered, eyes locked on Naruto's as she shoved a dented bento box into Minato's hands.

"Lunch? It's nearly nine o'clock at night. What…" Minato frowned, and opened the meal. "Kushina, this is completely cold. And it looks like it was thrown together from thirty feet away." He turned, looking up at her, watching her observe his two 'guests'. "What's wrong? Why are you acting like this?"

"Your name is Naruto, right?" Kushina nearly whispered.

Naruto blinked, but didn't shy away from her gaze. "I, um... yeah. Yeah, that's my name."

She stared at him, shaking at her knees.

"You're… you're real…"

Naruto blinked, but said nothing when he caught the look in his mother's eyes.

She knew. He _knew_ she knew. Somehow, she had figured it out - or had been eavesdropping.

**"I took matters into my own hands, brat."**

Both Naruto and Kushina jumped.

"You damn fox," Kushina grumbled. "You take a nice little evening vacation and suddenly you're chattier than Minato after happy hour."

"Wait," Naruto began, eyebrows pressed together across his forehead. "You _heard_ that?"

"Wait," Kushina repeated, mirroring Naruto's facial expression with her own. "You heard him too?"

"What's going on here?" Minato asked, moving across the room so he could stand between the two. "Kushina?"

 **"When we arrived here,"** Kurama began with a sigh of resigned frustration, **"the Tailed Beasts of this timeline merged with our own. We figured that out pretty early on, what with you vaporizing that pitiful monument."** He paused, grumbling to himself in amusement. **" It would seem that the older of the two beasts received the chakra of the younger, and the younger's consciousness was destroyed in the process."**

Naruto blinked.

Kushina blinked.

Boruto and Minato shared a look, and Boruto just shrugged a silent ' _you know as much as I do'_.

 **"Come on, Naruto,"** Kurama yawned. **"Must I spell it all out to you?"**

"If the consciousness was destroyed," Naruto said, connecting the dots, "then what was I running around returning to each of the jinchuuriki?"

 **"And the savior of the world finally figures it out,"** Kurama snorted. **"You had to split the nine of us in half to return our chakra to the hosts of this time. And that means—"**

"You're linked," Kushina finished, awed. "That's…"

"What," Minato growled, "is happening?"

"What's happening is they're coming home with us tonight!" Kushina said with a grin, slapping her hands together with a sense of finality. "They don't have a place to stay, right? So why don't they come with us?"

Minato looked dumbfounded. "B-but Kushina, they're—"

Kushina rolled her eyes. "I know what they are, Minato. That doesn't mean we can't treat them like human beings. I'm sure they didn't mean any of it anyways." She was already half out the door, having beckoned Boruto and Naruto to follow her.

"They _killed_ Hiashi Hyuuga!" Minato said.

Kushina stopped and gripped the doorframe, poking her head back into the room. "No, they didn't. He died himself. They just so happened to be nearby." She frowned. "Besides, he was a ninja. He knew the stakes. As sad as it is to see him go, he was prepared for it. So was his family. It's what happens."

Minato raised an eyebrow. "What? How on earth could you know any of that?"

She winked at him and smiled, and disappeared down the dark hallway.

Minato just stood there.

Naruto and Boruto remained seated, both watching the couple with wide eyes. Neither dared move.

"Look, if they kill us in our sleep, I'll let you divorce me in hell!" Kushina shouted back from the base of the stairs.

Minato just stared at the door to his office like a man who had just seen a ghost.

After a long moment of silence – Boruto's eyes continued to dart between his father and his grandfather in confusion – Minato sighed, and slumped forward.

"Come on," he grumbled. "No funny business, please."

Naruto and Boruto both held their snickers as they followed the thoroughly whipped Fourth Hokage out into the night.

* * *

**_"Kushina Uzumaki."_ **

_The redhead jumped. One second she was busy assembling a bento box to take to her husband as a small token of thanks for the long hours he was putting in (and maybe do some snooping in the process, as she tended to do)._

_The next…_

_The sharp glare of the Nine-Tailed Fox held her in place, her body far too close to the beast's razorblade teeth. She attempted to move back a step, but found herself locked in place – for a reason she couldn't quite explain._

_Was it fear? Was it curiosity?_

_Was it both?_

_The fox had_ never _sought her out in a manner like this. As a matter of fact, he hadn't said more than a handful of sentences to her in all the years she had been its jinchuuriki. So why now?_

 **_"Why now indeed,"_ ** _the fox mused, and its eyes closed._ _**"I forgot how amusing it was to strike fear into humans. Naruto truly has softened me up."** _

_Kushina blinked. "I-"_

**_"You're wondering why I summoned you here, aren't you?"_ ** _the Kyuubi guessed, opening one eye. He arched his back, stretching like a lazy cat, the lone chain tied to his hind paw clamoring as he moved._

_Still finding her mouth to be frozen shut, she gave the demon a hasty nod._

**_"Hmph,"_ ** _the Kyuubi grunted, settling itself down again._ _**"That brat can't seem to figure out how to handle himself in complicated situations. It's a miracle he hasn't yet been chased out of the village by a mob."** _

_He sighed again, and cast a glance at Kushina, his posture bored and indifferent._ _**"Naruto. The blond from before – the one that rescued you from your mind. Remember him?"** _

_Kushina paused for a moment, before a small smile graced her lips. "Yeah, I do. He had hair like Minato's."_

_The Kyuubi smirked, his mouth turning upwards in amusement._ _**"I should certainly hope so, considering he's the Fourth's son."** _

_A bubble of laughter fought its way up Kushina's windpipe, and it released itself into the void of her mindscape like a choked cough. "I… what? Did you just say—"_

_The Kyuubi harrumphed._ _**"Yes, yes. He's your son. No, I'm not lying to you. Yes, I am aware of the fact that Naruto is older than the Fourth. Yes, it should be impossible."** _

_Kushina moved to open her mouth again, but the fox beat her to it._ _**"And no, he's not one of Orochimaru's experiments, either."** _

_"What?" she asked, raising a confused eyebrow. "How…_ what _?"_

 **_"Naruto is explaining the same exact thing to Minato right this very moment,"_ ** _the fox said, rolling its eyes._ _**"You are truly as predictable as I remember you."** _

_Kushina coughed into her fist, her mouth open and flabbergasted. "I don't… heh…"_

_She sat down._

_The Nine-Tails gave her a look._ _**"Taking a nap?"** _

_"No, no," Kushina said in a singsong voice, curling up into a fetal ball. "I'm just trying to figure out when I lost my mind and went insane is all."_

**_"Perhaps you aren't as predictable as I thought,"_ ** _the fox mumbled to itself, sighing. He reached over with his paw and grabbed her._

_Kushina yelped. Chains bathed in golden fire burst from her back, wrapping around the beast's hand._

**_"Relax,"_ ** _the fox said, sighing again. Kushina was starting to get the feeling that this was all a chore for him. He lifted her up, mass of chain and all, and forced her to her feet._ _**"Get up and listen to me."** _

_"I think I'll wait for Jiraiya to show up in a dress and serenade me, if you don't mind," Kushina grumbled, rubbing her forehead. "Because that makes more sense than a ten-story tall fox telling me my husband has a son that's old enough to be my uncle."_

**_"Would you just listen to me?!"_ ** _the fox roared, knocking her off her feet again. She scrambled, eyes wide, suddenly remembering who it was she was dealing with._ _**"Naruto Uzumaki, the man who came and saved your life, is your son. He's also Minato's son. And he's from the future."** _

_The fox didn't bother waiting for her response._ _**"The boy with him? His name is Boruto Uzumaki. He is your grandson. They are here from the future, and are** _ **TOO DAMN STUBBORN TO JUST ASK FOR HELP ALREADY."**

_The fox roared into the sky, smashing its fist into the ground. Chunks of off-white nothingness rose into the air and dusted them both, the thin haze disappearing as fast as it had come._

_Kushina trembled, shocked at the outburst. "I… I'm sorry?"_

**_"Hmph,"_ ** _the fox grumbled, slumping back to the ground, exhaustion spread across its face. Kushina had never noticed it before, but the beast showed its emotions in its eyes – and right now, it was exasperated._

_"Is that what this is?" Kushina began, her voice soft and concerned. "You asking for help? On their behalf?"_

_The fox's pupils slid back to her._ _**"I end up doing everything. I think** _ **I** **_am the one that should be in charge, not that nimrod."_ **

_"Oi!" Kushina barked, bopping the fox on its nose. "Don't talk about my son like that!"_

_The fox froze._

_Kushina froze._

_"I… I'm sorry…" she said, slinking back, eyes wide. "I didn't mean to—"_

**_"Ba!"_** _the fox snickered, amused. Kushina winced at the sound, shocked beyond belief that the most powerful demon in existence (that she was aware of) was laughing in front of her in this manner. It was almost_ evil _, to an extent. And yet, somehow, it felt full of playfulness and genuine amusement. And was that…_ relief?

 _He calmed himself, smirking at her, raising an eyebrow of its own._ _**"You believe me, then? Now that is a surprise."** _

_"I don't really, ehrm, know," Kushina said, bashful. "I guess I had my suspicions? Like, I can see he has Minato's hair and talents as a shinobi, but I'd recognize that build anywhere." She chuckled, eyes closing. "He looks just like my father."_

_It wasn't until she felt the tears draining down her face that she realized she was crying._

* * *

Naruto watched as Boruto stepped out of the shower, his raggedy clothes draped over his clean body like rags.

They were in the guest room of his parent's house.

In the _past_.

He looked down at himself. The royal blue fleece shirt his father (begrudgingly) gave him upon their arrival – one of his own, it seemed – sat over his skin like a mismatched tablecloth on a dinner spread. His missing arm left the right sleeve of the shirt empty and wilted.

Boruto walked over to the twin-sized mattress that sat in the middle of the room, pulling aside the large quilt with the Konoha Leaf stitched into the front that was draped over top. He paused for a moment, nibbling on his lower lip in silent contemplation, his eyebrows fighting one another across the middle of his forehead. His grip on the quilt tightened into a knot.

Naruto paused, and walked over to the air mattress his mother had set up for him on the floor beside the bed. Rather than dealing with the argument he was sure would come, Naruto had opted to take the temporary bed, leaving the other for Boruto.

"Are you alright?" Naruto asked quietly, when Boruto still hadn't moved.

The boy just leaned over and flicked off the small bedside lamp. The room was bathed in darkness. "I'm fine."

Naruto sighed. Rather than put up a fight, he waited for the sounds of rustling sheets that indicated Boruto had tucked himself in, before following suit in his own bed.

Silence overtook them.

Naruto laid his head on the small pillow – the decorative one from the couch in the living room – and listened as the house breathed in the night.

He could hear his parents talking in the other room, their muffled voices carrying down the hallway and through the door. He could hear the sounds of the building creaking as the wind swayed it, and heard the sounds of the tree outside scraping against the glass window in the kitchen.

His mind began to wander.

Boruto's sheets rustled, and Naruto snapped to attention. He heard the sound of two bare feet connecting with the wooden floor, and waited for them to pad their way to the bathroom again. He knew for a fact the boy hadn't brushed his teeth.

Much to his surprise, the padding approached him.

"Dad?" a voice whispered.

Naruto blinked, blind in the darkness. "Yeah?"

Silence.

"Can I… sleep with you tonight?"

Naruto felt the corners of his mouth move upwards into a small smile.

"Sure."

He pulled back the blanket, and felt as Boruto lowered himself onto the air mattress. He curled himself up next to Naruto, tugging the blanket until it covered him as well.

Naruto ran his hand through Boruto's hair, brushing it aside each time it tried to leap back across his forehead like a petulant grasshopper. He felt Boruto's breathing even out, sleep overtaking him.

Naruto let out a breathless sigh, and stared up at the ceiling.

He needed a breather.

He willed a shadow clone into existence, and carefully swapped places with it, standing a moment later.

"I'll be back in a few, I promise," he whispered.

He vanished in a swirl of wind.

* * *

"Are you going to tell me what's going on?"

Kushina sighed, fluffing up the array of pillows behind her head. She turned to look at her husband, who was standing by the front of the room, leaning against the frame of their bedroom door.

She shrugged, and sat herself up in the bed. "I don't think you'd believe me if I told you."

Minato smiled. "I've had a ridiculous week. I don't think _anything_ could faze me at this point."

"Alright, if you say so," Kushina shrugged. "The Kyuubi told me everything."

Minato blanched. "Wait, what? The Kyuubi?"

Kushina scratched her nose. "Yeah… it was the strangest thing. I was in the middle of making you lunch at the time, and… well… I sorta passed out." She ran her hand across her neck in embarrassment. "And it was for a few hours, too, apparently, because of how cold the food was when I woke up."

" _What?_ " Minato moved across the room and sat on the end of the bed, worry spread across his face. "You passed out again?"

She rolled her eyes. "Relax, Minato. I'm not a glass doll. I can handle myself, y'know."

Minato nodded, turning away, but Kushina could tell by the way his lips pursed that he wasn't buying it.

"Aww, is someone _worried about me?_ " She cooed, leaning over and socking him in the shoulder. "You're such a mother hen." She cackled like a witch for a moment at her own joke, then flopped back against her throne of pillows. Her hands moved towards her belly, and her eyes softened. "You're going to make a great father, Minato. I can tell already."

Kushina blinked when she noticed how her husband froze. "Minato?"

"It's not true, is it?" Minato whispered, turning and letting his back fall on the bed. "It can't be."

Memories of her conversation with the fox resurfaced.

**_"They need your help, Kushina. They need all the help they can get."_ **

"I honestly think he's telling the truth, Minato," she said, voice barely above a whisper. She leaned forward and began to knead her fingertips through his hair.

"Is that why you invited them into our home?" he deadpanned.

She leaned over him and gave him an upside-down glare. "Can you at least just… hear him out? Y'know, let him talk. Don't be so serious." She tapped him on the nose. "Talk to him as Minato Namikaze, not the Yellow Flash Fourth Hokage, who has to keep up appearances and make himself look good because he's new on the job. Or whatever."

The corners of his mouth twitched up, and he sighed in relief. "Hmm. Yeah. Maybe."

Kushina giggled. "You can be something else, you know that?"

The two just sat there for a moment, the warm glow from the bedside lamp casting long shadows across the room.

Minato shot up from the bed, his eyes narrowing.

"Whoa!" Kushina yelped, as she barely preventing their two skulls from crashing into one another.

"He's gone," he hissed, and moved to his feet. "He left the house."

* * *

Minato found Naruto alone atop the Hokage Monument, bathed in moonlight. The older blonde sat wistful, contemplative, the lights of the village below twinkling in the whites of his eyes.

Relief washed over the Fourth Hokage like high tide.

"You know, you look a lot like me," Minato said from a respectable distance, turning to look out over the cliff edge himself. "I used to come here a lot when I was younger to decompress. And with that blue shirt and your hair…" He chuckled. "Well, let's just say, for a moment there I thought my past had come back to bite me."

He realized the double meaning behind his words as soon as they left his lips, regretting it But Naruto didn't make any indication that he had heard him.

Minato turned again, looking down the rocky cliff side to the empty space beside the Third Hokage's stoic face. "They're supposed to start work on my statue this coming week," Minato started again. "The artist that came up with the design has hired the chiselers, and he's been paid. Now all I have to do is wait… which is the hardest part, of course!" He let out a forced chuckle.

He deflated after being ignored again. "I've… been told I can talk a lot," Minato sighed. "Well… when I'm nervous, at least. So I'm sorry if I'm being, well, a bother."

To his surprise, Naruto turned and beamed up at him. "Why would I think that?" he asked, holding back a snicker.

Minato blinked. "Oh. Well, it's what I'd think."

"Pshh," Naruto said, waving his hand in front of him in a deflective gesture. "Well, you shouldn't think like that."

Minato smirked. "Yeah, that's what Kushina tells me."

He took the unspoken invitation and moved toward Naruto, taking the seat to his right.

"The view sure is nice."

"Yeah, it really is."

Minato turned and looked to the right, where the three existing heads sat embedded in the mountainside. "You know, the better view is over there, by the actual heads."

Naruto just smiled, and looked down the side of the empty cliff face, as if he was visualizing something there. "Nah. Call me self-centered, but I like this spot the most."

Minato chose not to ask. Instead, they sat in silence.

"They're laying Hiashi's body to rest in two days," Minato said.

Naruto just nodded, eyes still locked on the village below them. "I'd… like to attend the service. To pay my respects."

Minato murmured in affirmation. "I suppose that can be arranged. The events that took place this afternoon have been declared an SS-ranked secret, so you shouldn't have to worry about any Hyuuga trying to maim you from a distance."

Naruto cast Minato a sidelong glance. "When did you do that?"

Minato gave a small, uncharacteristic shrug. "Just now."

They sat in silence.

After a few moments of listening to the hum of the village's night-life, Naruto cleared his throat. "You know, if there's a way for me to prove that I'm actually your son, I'd gladly do it."

Minato blinked. "Oh? What did you have in mind?"

Naruto gave a humorless smile. "That's what I've been trying to figure out," he said.

"I see." Minato dipped into his kunai pouch and pulled out a blade, the polished metal catching Naruto's eye. Minato tossed it into the earth before them, the edge of the knife catching in the rock. "Can you use the Hiraishin?"

Naruto almost pouted. "No. Believe me, I've tried. Your notes make no sense."

"My notes?" Minato frowned. "Why didn't I teach it to you myself?"

More silence. That was answer enough.

"I see," said Minato.

Naruto bolted upright. "Wait a second," he whispered, eyes wide.

Minato raised an eyebrow. "What?"

"The Rasengan," Naruto said with a smile. "I may not have learned the Hiraishin, but I _did_ learn the Rasengan." As if to prove his point, he extended his left hand before him, and a bright orb of chakra erupted in his palm. The mountaintop was bathed in a bright blue light, as if a beached comet had made landfall.

Minato turned and leaned close, scrutinizing the sphere as it spun. "Very well done," he said with a nod. "Fast execution time, low chakra burn, stable construction – this is textbook."

Naruto shrugged with a small smile. "Well, I try," he said, a small hint of pride in his voice.

"Unfortunately, I can't say that proves anything," Minato said with a sigh. "I know it's just me being pedantic, but… it's what I'm best at." He gave a sheepish grin, rubbing the back of his neck. "Gotta maintain some kind of reputation."

Naruto let out a laugh, and shook his head. "No, I'm not finished."

Minato froze. "Wait, what?"

"I'm not finished."

"Are…" He blinked, eyes wide, gaze burning into the Rasengan as it whirled in the night air. "Are you saying what I think you're saying?"

Naruto stood, jutsu still in palm. Minato watched with hopeful anticipation.

Quick as a whip, the blue of the Rasengan burned away, leaving behind a bright orange – a star misplaced from the heavens. The low hum was replaced with a high-pitched whistle, and the entire thing spun faster and faster and _faster_ until the movement was so sharp – _so precise_ – it left behind afterimages.

"This," Naruto said with a proud smile, "is the Rasenshuriken."

Minato took a shaky step forward, hand outstretched. He felt the way the needles of wind chakra bit into his skin, the way his undershirt thrashed in protest against his arm, the way his eyes followed the rotation of the sphere.

"This… is wind chakra," he whispered, awed.

"That's not all," Naruto beamed. He turned, looking up and over the village, towards the muddy black horizon, sphere swirling and whirling in his hand. He reared his hand back and hurled it forward.

The jutsu flew.

The Rasenshuriken sliced through the night sky like a narrow blade, thrumming as it cut through the currents in the air.

It exploded above the village like a firework, bright yellow light bringing daylight before dawn. A burst of wind whipped across the village, trees hissing in protest. Minato raised his hand to shield his eyes from the blast, before it dipped down to his open mouth.

He started laughing.

"Years," he managed to get out between outbursts. "It took me years to get as far as I did. And I never…"

Tears welled in his eyes. "I could never…"

He turned, eyes wide, until he met the sad, soft, warm embrace of Naruto's own eyes.

_His son's eyes._

Without thinking, Minato took the step forward, and grabbed him.

"Naruto?" he whispered into the hug, and when he felt the hug returned, all was right with the world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoops. Apparently I thought I had posted this 2 weeks ago like I had planned to... but I pressed "Save but don't publish" instead of "publish". AO3, sometimes you infuriate me.
> 
> So I guess that means everyone gets two chapters in one day instead of one! Because I noticed this after posting Chapter 15. To those of you that read ahead and were like "what", then I apologize. And yikes, Chapter 14 is so important, too.
> 
> Here's hoping that doesn't happen again. :S
> 
> Hope you enjoy both new chapters!  
> \- Endo


	15. Chapter 15

“Tell me everything.”

The gleam in his father’s eyes said it all. This was no longer an interrogation. This was curiosity. Like stoking a smoldering fire – except Minato’s fire had been primed with kerosene.

There was no turning back now.

“Oh, well…” Naruto mumbled with a small smile, rubbing at the back of his neck. “It’s kind of a long story.”

Minato looked up at him. “I have time. Believe me.”

Naruto was about to open his mouth again, but Minato interrupted him. “How would time travel even work?” he asked the empty cliff side, pacing back and forth. “Time isn’t something that just…” he paused, rubbing his chin, “ _reverses_. There’s got to be a catalyst.”

He froze, turned. “Was it the Hiraishin?” Minato questioned, a sense of urgency in his voice.

“What?” Naruto said, raising an eyebrow. “Uhh, no.”

Minato let out a sigh of relief, the pleading look in his eyes replaced with something far softer. “Good. That makes things easier.”

Naruto blinked. “It does?”

With one fluid motion Minato pulled out a Hiraishin kunai. “Do you see this seal?” he asked rhetorically, although he didn’t say anything when Naruto nodded in response. He twirled it between his fingers as he spoke. “I know every single detail of this seal. What each line does, how each one reacts with the others, what happens when you don’t use the right amount of chakra…” he shuddered, “…that sort of thing. I spent _years_ of my life perfecting it. Learning every one of its small imperfections, how to work around them, and how to capitalize on them in some cases.

“So if the Hiraishin had something to do with it,” he continued, narrowing his eyes at the knife, “I doubt I’d be much help. It would imply that the science I applied to create the Flying Thunder God jutsu was wrong…” he frowned, “or, at the very least, incomplete. And I wouldn’t even know the first place to start.”

Naruto nodded, then paused, looking at the kunai that was still held in Minato’s fist.

An idea.

“What about reversing it?”

It was Minato’s turn to look confused. “I’m sorry?”

“Well, if the Hiraishin is a Space-Time jutsu, can’t we use it to return to our time?” Naruto asked with a shrug. “It would make things easier, that’s for sure. Maybe it wasn’t how we got here, but it can be how we get back.”

Minato sighed, shaking his head. “Unfortunately, that’s not how it works.” He took a step backwards, then a step forwards, grinding his teeth in thought as if trying to find a way to explain a difficult concept. “It’s… it’s like…” he froze, frowning at the ground.

Then, he turned and looked up at Naruto, a spark in his eyes. “Can I take you to my office?”

Naruto opened his mouth to respond, but Minato latched onto his shoulder and tugged before he could speak.

He had barely a moment’s notice to collect himself. One second they were standing on top of the Hokage monument, and the next they weren’t. The nausea hit him like a boulder, his empty stomach clenching in his gut. He forced the feeling down and turned to instead focus on his father, who was swimming in the ribbons of dizziness that drifted from one side of his’s sight to the other.

The room they now found themselves in was dark, that much was certain. And Naruto realized a moment later, after his vision cleared, that this was _not_ Minato’s office in the Hokage Tower, as he was expecting.

Minato had already begun rummaging around, obviously looking for something. And judging by the room’s level of cleanliness, Naruto mused, he’d be looking for a while.

Judging by the way the room was laid out, and by the fact that a small photograph of Minato and Kushina sat on Minato’s overburdened desk, Naruto could assume that this was Minato’s private study, tucked away in one of the back rooms of his house. _This_ room had only one long window at the back, girdled on all sides by tall bookshelves that seemed to stretch up and meet the ceiling in a strange sort of claustrophobic embrace. Papers and parchment and half-drunken cups of cold, days-old coffee lay scattered across the room, shoved into any available space or perched precariously atop of massive piles of dossiers and mission reports. The moonlight outside drifted through the slits in the curtains draped over the window, and the faint whisper of dust drifted through the air.

“Aha!” Minato said.

There was a loud bang as a small pile of books on Minato’s desk toppled over, and the man himself popped up from behind it a moment later with a smile on his face, a small leather-bound book clutched in his hand.

He pulled a blank sheet of paper and a pen from the drawer in his desk, and snatched a clipboard he had found from its position amidst several others near the far window at the back of the room.

He walked back to where Naruto was standing, dusting himself off as he moved.

“I want to show you something.” Minato set the paper atop the clipboard in his hand.

First, he started with a simple line, dragging the pen across the paper in one clean motion. “See this? This is space-time.”

Naruto raised his eyebrow. “I’m pretty sure that’s a line.”

Minato gave him a look. “Use your imagination. This line represents space-time – more specifically, _our_ space-time. This is the realm where the Hiraishin works, where Summoning jutsus work… that sort of thing.”

Minato drew an arrow, connecting a point on the right side of the line to a point on the left. “Time travel is _thought_ to work in this manner – you are locked in this one line. You can go backwards and forwards, but any events that occur in the past will directly change the events that occur in the future.”

Naruto blinked. “Try that one more time?”

“There’s a famous paradox that the Second Hokage coined,” Minato said. “He said that if you go back in time and kill your father before you were…” Minato coughed into his hand and blushed a bit, “… _created_ , you would cease to exist.”

“But then who would have killed my father? I mean,” Naruto frowned, looking down at the page. “Uhh, you? If I don’t exist, then…”

Minato snapped his fingers, smiling. “Exactly. Paradox. And I don’t like paradoxes.”

Minato tapped the page with the tip of his pen. “This is about as far as we’ve come in terms of our understanding of both space _and_ time. But I think that there’s another kind of space-time… one that Tobirama Senju himself was working on perfecting before he died.” He waggled the book between his fingers a bit.

Moving his pen above the paper again, Minato drew another line below the first, and then another, and then another.

Naruto’s eyes widened. “There are more than one space-times?”

“It makes sense, doesn’t it?” Minato said with a smile. “Time isn’t some self-correcting entity, nor is it a means to directly change events in the future. It’s just… there. But each decision we make, big or little, creates entirely different paths – an infinite number of ‘could have been’s.” Minato looked at him. “That’s what you are, I think. A ‘could have been’.”

Silence overtook the room as both men absorbed the information.

Naruto spoke first. “So where does this fit in with us? You were saying that the Hiraishin wouldn’t work… is this why?”

“Yes,” Minato nodded. He pointed to the first line again. “The Hiraishin in its current form is limited to just _one_ timeline.” He scratched his head. “Well, as far as I can understand, at least.”

He took the pen and drew a dotted vertical line from one timeline to the same point on another.

“ _This_ is the jutsu we need to use get you home, not the Hiraishin,” Minato said, nibbling at the back of the pen in thought. “And we also need to figure out a way to find the right timeline you came from to begin with.”

Minato narrowed his eyes at the page, and frowned. “The problem is, I don’t know how to find either. And I don’t even have proof that my theory is anything beyond just that.”

He sighed, and moved back toward his desk. He moved around it, then sank himself into his chair with a sigh. “This is going to take some time.”

Naruto followed suit, settling himself down in one of the two wooden chairs that sat across from his father’s. “Yeah, I figured.”

They both sat in amiable silence, allowing for the low hum of the village around them to snap into focus. The sound flowed through the room like leaves floating down a shallow brook, a dull hiss of nighttime life that trickled up from the streets. The wooden clock in the corner _tick tick ticked_ away each slow second, and for the first time in three days, Naruto no longer felt a sense of dread from the sound. Instead, it reminded him that despite his current predicament, he was safe.

_Alive_.

He and Boruto.

His mouth was open before he realized it, the question on his lips far sooner than in his mind. “Are you… ready?”

Minato murmured in confusion. “Sorry?”

“Well…” Naruto began, not sure why he was asking. “To become a father, I guess.”

Minato was silent for a few moments. When he finally spoke, his voice was quiet and uncertain. “I don’t think anyone can ever truthfully answer that question,” he said.

Naruto chuckled, and ran a hand through his hair.

“Yeah, I wasn’t sure myself,” Naruto said, resting the back of his head on the seat behind him, looking up at the patterns in the ceiling. “Either time, really.”

Minato sat up a bit, eyes widening a sliver more. He looked over at Naruto. “Either time? You have another son?”

“Daughter, actually,” Naruto smiled, closing his eyes. He laughed. “She takes more after her mother.”

Minato let out a quiet chuckle, and leaned back in his chair. “What’s she like?”

Naruto blinked. “My daughter? Or my wife?”

“Either or, honestly,” Minato said. “I’m just… amazing that this is happening. My adult son _from the future_ has a wife and daughter.”

“And a son,” Naruto added.

“And a son,” Minato affirmed. “I just… can’t possibly explain how this feels in words alone. To find out that I have a family later in life? A grandson and a granddaughter?” He shook his head in amazement. “A daughter-in-law?”

“You probably have a lot of questions,” Naruto said.

“Do I ever,” Minato said.

“Well,” Naruto smiled sitting up in his seat and leaning his arm onto the rest of his chair, “Where do you want to start?”

 

 

When Boruto awoke the next morning, he expected to find his father next to him.

Instead, he found himself alone atop the spare mattress, entangled in a mop of spare blankets and bedsheets, the bright light from a late morning sun shining through the drawn curtains right into his eyes.

He leaned forward in bed and looked down at himself – at the way his tattered clothes wrapped around his body from a night of restless sleep. He sat up further and twisted them back around his chest with a huff, then looked up to survey the rest of the room, yawning.

His grandmother was sitting on the other bed.

“Good morning,” she said with a cheery smile. Her hands blurred over the fabric of Naruto’s dress shirt, and Boruto noted that she was sewing up the damage it had incurred over the past three days.

He shot up straight when he realized where he was, and what she was doing in his room. “Woah, how did you—”

“Get in here without you noticing?” Kushina supplied with a cocky smile. “Pshh. You _do_ realize I’m a jounin, right? I would sure hope I could sneak into a room when someone was sleeping.” She poked the skin under her arm with a frown. “Although I can’t say I’m not getting rusty. Meh.”

Boruto raised an eyebrow. “What… uh… are you doing here? And where’s my dad?”

Kushina snorted. “Your father’s downstairs with Minato – I think they’re working on some sort of way to get you home. Supposedly.”

“Supposedly?” Boruto said.

“Yeah, who knows with those two,” she said. “They both snuck out last night for a bit of a midnight gallivant around town, but now they’re best friends or something.” She sniffed, turning her nose up at the thought. “Spends the better part of the past day not believing me when I told him your father was our son, but all it takes is a moonlit stroll through the village before he actually changes his mind.”

She muttered something under her breath that sounded suspiciously like “ _trusting husband my ass_ ”, before she remembered she wasn’t alone in the room and beamed a bright smile.

“So!” she said with a sense of finality, tossing the needle and thread to the side, clapping her hands. “It’s just us two for now. I figured we could, y’know, get to know each other. Considering I _am_ your grandma and all.”

She let out a strange sound – a mixture of excitement and glee and something else that Boruto couldn’t quite place.

He looked at her, looked away when she beamed down at him, and ran his hands down his bedsheets. “Well, I _am_ kinda hungry, I guess.”

As Boruto disentangled himself from the bed, Kushina couldn’t help but notice the way the boy grimaced at his clothes as they pulled on him. “You okay?”

Boruto turned and looked up at her. “Huh?”

“Yeah,” Kushina said, nodding at Boruto’s torn shirt. “You’re acting like that shirt’s cutting into your skin or something.” She raised an eyebrow at him, and sniffed. “Probably pretty rancid, too. Here…”

Before Boruto could say anything – on the contrary or otherwise – Kushina reached across the bed from where she was sitting and grabbed a small pile of clothes from atop one of the throw pillows. She turned, stack in arms, and tossed them at Boruto.

“Figured you’d need some new clothes, so I picked those up earlier this morning when I was out.”

Boruto turned the faded white t-shirt around in his hands, and gave the matching navy blue pants a curious inspection as well. “This is for me?”

“Well duh,” Kushina said with a huff. “Who else around here wears your size?”

Boruto blanched. “How do you know my size?”

She smiled. “Well, I just kinda… guessed? So let me know if you look like a shrunken toddler when you put them on. I can take them back for you.”

They both stood there for a moment – Boruto next to his bed, arms filled with clothes, and Kushina by the door, hands on her hips, looking mighty proud of herself.

“Uhh,” Boruto coughed, looking away. “Can you… like, y’know…”

Kushina blinked twice, her mind trying to parse what it was he had just said.

“Ohhh!” she said after a long moment, her eyes widening. “Sorry, sorry! I’ll, ehh, give you some privacy.”

She shuffled out the door with a sheepish smile, allowing it to _click_ behind her with a satisfying sense of finality.

He should have been surprised when the clothes fit perfectly, but somehow, in some way, he wasn’t.

 

* * *

 

 

When she heard the boy coming down the stairs, Kushina rushed to make herself busy, scuttling across the room until she found a frying pan and a small spatula in the cabinet by the refrigerator. When she turned around and saw she was still alone, she pumped her fist in silent victory, made her way back towards the stovetop and stood in front of it like a proud gargoyle, waiting.

Boruto stepped into the room with a cautious hesitation, and was just about to clear his throat to signal his presence when Kushina spoke, still turned away.

“So! Tell me a little about yourself.”

Even though she couldn’t see his face, she knew he was surprised.

She just turned around and gave him a deadpan look. “Jounin, remember?” She pointed at the small table, and smiled. “Wanna have a seat? I’ll make you something to eat, if you’re hungry.”

Kushina watched him shuffle his way across the room. He looked like a lost puppy, what with the uncertainty in his eyes and the way he curled in on himself when he sat down, staring off at some faraway point in the table in front of him.

She sighed to herself, knowing full well the range of emotions the kid must have been going through. He was in a new place, (almost) alone, without a clue on what to do or how to act.

He reminded her of herself, during that first week in the Leaf Village.

That first week, up until she found Minato.

She blinked away memories of the past and brought herself back to reality, content to take things one step at a time.

And for now, food was the first order of business.

Kushina took a pair of caramel-brown eggs out of a bin next to the refrigerator and split them open over the searing-hot frying pan that sat atop the stove range, and the entire room was doused in the smell of scrambled eggs cooking and the satisfying _hiss_ of food-in-pan that made her own stomach rumble.

‘ _I guess I_ am _eating for two now, eh?’_ she thought to herself with a small smile, and chiseled away at the stovetop with her rubber spatula.

“ **You have always been eating for two.”**

Kushina jumped, having to fumble with the spatula above the stovetop between her fingertips when the fox startled it out of her grip. She snatched it out of the air, trying not to hiss when she grabbed the business end on accident, and glared into the wall.

‘ _You know, I almost miss the old you. The old you wasn’t so damn_ chatty _.’_

Even though she couldn’t see, Kushina _knew_ the Nine-Tails smirked at her.

She snuck another glance over her shoulder. The boy hadn’t moved.

“Got something on your mind?” Kushina said.

No answer.

This time, she turned around and pointed the spatula at him. “Come on, spit it out,” she said, tapping her foot. “You’re not gonna feel better until you do, y’know.”

She watched him fight an inner battle of wills, before he sighed and shrugged, admitting defeat. “I, uh… guess I’m just nervous.” He gave her a very small, very hesitant smile. “And, uhh… weirded out, y’know.”

Kushina paused at the verbal tick, and it was only then that she realized exactly what he meant. “Yeah, you’re telling me,” she agreed with a snort. “I just barely found out I’m going to be a mom, and now I know for _sure_ I’m gonna be a _grandma_ too.”

She sighed, smiled, turned back to the stovetop to tend to her breakfast-in-progress. “I doubt many people can say they’ve had a conversation with their grandkids when they’re still in their twenties.”

Kushina froze, and then looked back over at Boruto. “Hey, uhh… you wouldn’t happen to know if I’m all short and wrinkly as an old woman, would you?”

The boy paled and turned away, eyes wide. He fidgeted in his seat. “I… uh…”

Always the optimist, Kushina assumed the worst. “Ahh, hell,” she hissed to the eggs. “That bad, huh?”

She pouted, and went back to her breakfast, chiseling away at it with her spatula. “Alright, fine, since _I’m_ old and grey, what about Minato? I’m sure he looks like he hasn’t aged at _all_ , the damn ageless baby. I swear, sometimes I can’t tell if he’s—”

She froze and turned around. Boruto was gone.

She raised an eyebrow, turned the stove off, covered their breakfast, and took a hesitant step towards the kitchen’s entrance. “Where did he make off to?”

She rounded the corner to the hallway, and out of the corner of her eye she spotted him – a faint glimmer of blond on the green-grey backdrop of her back garden.

She stopped, hugged the wall for a second, and just watched him – watched as he walked to the center of the yard with his hands clenched into fists; watched as he froze, tensed, spun in a small circle; watched as he marched towards the long wooden bench that sat in the corner, nestled under one of the many tall oaks that girdled their backyard. Everything in the village dulled into a low hum - a quiet whisper.

Boruto sat down with a visible huff, and pulled his legs up to his chest.

Kushina couldn’t help but let a small smile slide across her face. He looked like Minato, if Minato looked slightly more regal. His eyes were filled with a sharp electric fire, which was a stark contrast to the royal blue she was so used to seeing on a daily basis. And, judging by the eyes that Naruto – no, _her son_ had, it must have been a trait from his mother’s side.

But his personality? That was _all_ Kushina’s.

She grinned as she pushed opened the double doors and stepped into the garden, taking a deep breath of late morning air.

Boruto jumped, surprised. “You followed me?”

Kushina ignored him. Instead, she moved to the center of the yard, cracked her neck, and began stretching.

If Boruto was anything like she was, then she knew just what he needed.

She leaned over and pulled her slippers off her feet, and turned to face Boruto.

“Get up,” she commanded with a sly smile.

Boruto blinked. “Uhh… what?”

When he didn’t immediately move, Kushina lunged forward with a palm strike.

Boruto yelped and jumped backwards, landing with a haphazard wobble in the space behind the bench.

“What the hell?!” he yelled, eyebrows wide and disbelieving.

Kushina just smirked, and took a few slow steps towards the grassy center of the yard. “Spar with me,” she said with a shrug. “I don’t get to do it often, and I think we both could use it.”

Boruto blinked once, twice, then made his way out from behind the bench like an apprehensive rabbit.

“Come on,” Kushina goaded, moving into position. “What, can’t take a pregnant lady?”

Boruto growled and leapt forward, striking out with his fist.

Kushina batted it away and clucked at him. “Really? _That’s_ the best you can do?” She stuck her foot out as he darted past, and he went tumbling down to the ground like a drunken deer.

“Hey! Play fair!” Boruto yelled, leaping back to his feet.

“Pshh,” Kushina snorted, ducking out of the way of a hastily-thrown punch. “There’s no such thing as fair in a spar. That’s kinda the point, y’know!”

Boruto ran at Kushina again, and aimed a volley of jabs at her upper body. The older shinobi ducked out of the way of all of them, shirking around Boruto’s hands like they weren’t moving at all, laughing all the while. “I haven’t done this in a long time! I forgot how fun it was!” She knocked him back with a foot to his chest, which sent him tumbling across the yard and into the bench behind him.

Boruto just narrowed his eyes and charged at her with a renewed sense of vigilance. He aimed low, but Kushina countered lower. He aimed high, but Kushina was there too – and she took advantage of the few small imperfections in his taijutsu stance.

Coughing after having been thrown back into the dirt for a third time, Boruto had nearly had enough. “You don’t want to play fair? Fine!” He smirked, and shifted his hands into an all too familiar seal. “Try this on for size! Shadow Clone Jutsu!”

Two perfect copies of Boruto now stood next to the original, crossing their arms and looking altogether far too smug.

Kushina let out a belly-deep laugh. “Ha! Alright, if you think that’ll make any difference!”

The three Borutos charged, two taking Kushina from the sides while the original met her head on. She spun in a rough circle - slashing, parrying, ducking, weaving as the clones tried to find a chink in her defenses. Her red hair spread out on a halo around her head as she swirled in the back garden, and her green dress, which seemed awfully difficult to move around in at first glance, flowed around her as she moved in a way that seemed nearly unnatural.

Kushina sighed, and popped her neck again as she flung both the clones into the trees dotting the perimeter of the backyard. They dispelled in a pair of painful-sounding poofs. “Alright… I’m getting kinda bored of playing defense all the time, y’know,” she said with a small smile. “How about we mix things up a little?”

Boruto, who was still thinking of ways to try and get a single hit in, felt a sinking dread weave its way through his stomach at the look she was giving him. “Uhh…”

She rolled her eyes. “That means you should probably, I dunno, run or something.”

Boruto’s eyes widened, and he yelped as a blur of red and green and violet sprinted forward and planted a roundhouse kick square between his ribs.

He went flying, smashing through a flowerbed.

And then he too disappeared in a plume of smoke.

Kushina’s eyes widened.

A fist burst from the ground beneath her, and she yelped, darting backwards. She let out a mental cheer when it missed her by a hair’s breadth—

And then she felt a second fist slam into the back of her head.

Kushina fell forward a bit, dazed, and so she barely had time to process the foot of the first clone as it roared towards her.

_Crack!_

A hushed silence fell over the courtyard.

Kushina blinked, surprised. She reached up with her hand, and dabbed at the pool of blood that was blossoming along her lip. She turned, wide-eyed, and stared down at him.

Boruto fell backwards, chest heaving, his face wide with a victorious grin.

When he saw the look Kushina was giving him, his heart froze. He looked up at her, and for the first time since they had arrived, Boruto felt _truly_ scared. What if she had been hurt? What if he did something he wasn’t supposed to? Damn it, _this_ was why he didn’t want to get attached, _this_ was why he didn’t want to do this in the first place—

Kushina’s shock turned to awe, and then to amusement, and then to pride.

Pure, unadulterated, _motherly_ pride.

“That,” she breathed, her face twitching into a broad smile, “was _awesome._ ”

And then she fell to her knees, laughing all the while, and pulled the still-surprised Boruto into a hug. He flinched away at first, as if fearing a cheap punch, but Kushina wouldn’t have it. “You are amazing!” she said, as the stress in her grandson’s shoulders began to evaporate between her arms. “You are _amazing!”_

They sat there on the grass for what felt like the whole afternoon, laughing, and bleeding, and _bonding_.

For the first time since Kushina had met him, Boruto gave her a real smile. And for the first time all week, he relaxed _just enough_ to bring himself some peace of mind.

Their breakfast, cold and inedible, sat on the stovetop, long forgotten.

 

* * *

 

 

Naruto pulled the curtain back from the window frame and smiled.

Minato looked up from his book, eyebrow raised. “They still going at it down there?”

“Yeah,” Naruto said with a quiet laugh. “It’s pretty funny how well they get along.”

Minato smiled. “Well, if there was any doubt that they were related before…”

The curtain fell back into place, and the room was dropped back into comfortable darkness as Naruto made his way back towards the pile of books and notes that was somehow Minato’s desk. He let out a long sigh as he dropped himself back into his chair, and rubbed at his eyes with his hand, yawning.

“So, what exactly is the story with your hand?” Minato said as though the question had been eating away at his mind far longer than he was letting on, and when Naruto looked up, the man was looking him dead in the eye.

Naruto smiled. “Now _that_ is a long story,” he said, chuckling.

Minato leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms. “Try me,” he said with a smirk.

“Well, I… blew it off trying to save someone,” Naruto said, wincing. He rubbed at his shoulder, as though to sooth some sort of phantom pain. “But he lost his arm too, so I consider it an even trade.”

“Who was it?” Minato said, no longer quite as interested in his book on seal theory. “Who did you try and save?”

Naruto sighed. He was silent a moment, chewing on his lip, before he shrugged once and raised an eyebrow. “Well, since this is _technically_ a different timeline, it won’t hurt to tell you… will it?”

“Any chances of this world following the same path as yours went out the window as soon as you showed up,” Minato agreed.

Naruto shrugged. “Alright. Do you know who Itachi Uchiha is?”

Minato blinked. “Fugaku’s son? That’s who you had to rescue?”

“No. It was his younger brother.”

Minato leaned forward in thought, his eyes lighting up when realization struck. “Ahh, we learned just last week that Mikoto and Fugaku were expecting again.” He smiled up at Naruto. “I suppose that makes sense. He would be the same age as you, correct? You must have been good friends.”

Naruto paused. His smile strained. “Yeah. Great friends.”

Minato folded his hands over one another, watching. “I take it that you had a… strange relationship with him, then.”

Naruto nodded, eyes unfocused, drifting across the surface of the desk. “Yeah. That was… a tough time. Tough for everyone, really.” He sighed, closing his eyes. “I had a rough childhood. Although I’m sure you can see that just by looking at me.” He shook his stumped arm a bit for emphasis, the empty sleeve of his borrowed blue shirt waving in the air.

He looked up: a fire in his eyes, and a small, prideful smile on his lips. “But I made friends. Challenged myself. Looked up to…”

He paused - smiling, _thinking_.

Minato blinked. “Looked up to who?”

“Well, a few people.” Naruto chuckled. “Old man Hokage, for one. Granny Tsunade.” His smile grew more forlorn. “The old pervert. And…”

He stopped, a sense of seriousness in his voice, as he met Minato’s blue eyes with his own.

“You.”

Minato froze, feeling his heart clench in his chest in a peculiar, yet pleasant way.

Maybe it was the intensity of the stare. Maybe it was the fact that they were _his_ eyes looking back at him. Maybe it was the fact that this was a man, far older than he was, who had undoubtedly lived through his own struggles, grown up, started a family, and made a name for himself as a highly respectable ninja in the Leaf village of another world. He was unique, and yet the same. A shadow of Minato himself, but with enough imperfections to become an individual. It was a strange sensation, seeing a look of admiration on a face just like his. Almost disturbing, really. But beautifully so.

Minato felt… loved. It was a strange sense of love – like that of with an old friend. But it was far rawer than that. Far more _pure._ He felt idolized in a way he didn’t deserve. Like he was almost guilty for it.

But he wasn’t. Not really.

He looked at the man before him: battered, bruised, but still smiling. He was so much like Kushina, Minato almost couldn’t stand it. It was like looking through a kaleidoscope at a familiar object - the pictures were distorted and _off_ , but with a little bit of squinting...

His gut gave him a solid kick when he figured it out.

Fatherly pride. _That_ was the emotion he was feeling.

A select few of Naruto’s words filtered their way through his brain and came out comprehensible on the other side. His giddy smile turned to a frown. “Wait… you had a bad childhood? Why?”

Naruto smiled, and Minato realized just how quickly he had slid into ‘overbearing parent’ mode. “Well… that’s another long story. And I don’t think you’d like the end of it.”

Minato could read through the lines enough to understand what Naruto was hinting at. “So I’m dead, then.”

Naruto gave a sad nod, and his eyes raised to the spot on the mountain where Minato’s head lay. “Yeah.”

Minato frowned. “Well, that’s a morbid thought.”

Silence crept into the office the same way they themselves did not 10 hours earlier – suddenly, and without a sound. Naruto traced the ceiling tiles with his eyes, weaving them around one another in a mental game of cat versus mouse.

Minato shifted in his chair, uncomfortable. “Since it won’t matter anyway,” he began with a sheepish smile, “do you mind saying how?”

With a grimace, Naruto readjusted himself in his seat. He looked at Minato again, and sighed. “Do you remember that man lying on the street in Mist? The one I was talking to before you showed up?”

“The one you let escape?”

Naruto shrugged. “Yeah. You’re right, I did let him escape. But that was because what I said to him should, hopefully, be enough to stop him from murdering you on the day I’m born.”

Minato’s heart stopped, then started again, and then ka- _thumped_ along at an awkward rhythm as his mind caught up. Tough threads of worry – of _terror_ wound themselves through his chest, and he was beginning to find it hard to breath. “Did you…” he began, licking his suddenly rather dry lips. “Did you just say…”

The doors burst open in a crack that sounded like a bolt of lightning, and both men jumped.

A blur of white whipped across the room, grabbed Naruto by the collar, slammed him against the wall.

“What the hell are you doing back here again?!” Jiraiya yelled, eyes wide. He turned, worried, towards the Fourth Hokage. “Minato! Try not to struggle. I’ll get you out of there in… just a…”

He stopped midsentence.

Another awkward silence fell.

Naruto started laughing.

Jiraiya froze, eyes surprised. He turned back and forth from the man under his forearm to the man watching him from behind the desk with a smirk on his face, and he sighed, reaching up with his free hand and rubbing the bridge of his nose. “Oh gods. You’re best friends now, aren’t you?”

Naruto drooped forward, grabbing at his gut with his hand, trying to restrain himself. Jiraiya scoffed and let the man drop to the floor, and he marched towards Minato’s desk with a mighty huff.

Slamming his palms onto a pile of papers and scattered notebooks, he leaned forward and narrowed his eyes at Minato. “Care to explain? Maybe you could start with why he’s in your _house_.”

Naruto sighed, wiping his eyes, and stumbled back to the desk himself. He leaned into his seat, and pivoted so he could watch the two men look at each other, a giant grin on his face.

Minato just watched with a warm smile, and he turned to look up at Jiraiya in the same way. “We were just… bonding.”

Jiraiya turned back to Naruto. “Bonding? With him? Why? He’s a criminal!”

Minato shook his head and met Naruto’s knowing gaze with his own, as if they were sharing an inside joke. He supposed they were, after some thought. “Well, that may be, but he’s also my son.”

Jiraiya’s eyebrows flatlined, and he cast a knowing ‘ _are you kidding me’_ look back at Minato.

Naruto sighed and beamed up at Jiraiya, winking. “You might have to say that a little louder, _Dad._ I don’t think the old pervert heard you the first time.”

“What the—?!” Jiraiya sputtered, turning an enraged finger on Naruto. “Pervert?! And who the hell are you calling old? You look older than I do!”

Minato let out a quiet chuckle under his breath, bit it back with the back of his hand, and closed his eyes.

Naruto froze mid-laugh.

He paused, and his eyes scanned over Jiraiya’s face like a telescope searching out a faraway star. “Huh. I guess…” he let out single chuckle and ran his hand through his hair, “…I guess that’d make sense.” He threw his arm onto the armrest of his chair with a sense of poise, and cocked an eyebrow. “I’m thirty-seven. Yourself?”

Jiraiya narrowed his eyes. “Thirty-six.”

For a moment, Minato saw a pained smile flash across Naruto’s face, before he replaced it with a more natural one. It was subtle, like a slight of hand, but Minato noticed it nonetheless.

“Yeah, you _are_ younger than me, aren’t you?” he said, beaming. “Imagine that.”

Jiraiya crossed his arms and sat down in the third chair, next to Naruto. He scooted it back a few inches for good measure, positioned himself so he could see both the blondes with moderate ease, and looked back at Minato. “So he’s your _son_? How the hell does that even make sense? I may not be any good at it, but even I’m pretty sure that’s not how math works, Minato.”

Minato gave an embarrassed smile, and scratched a finger at his cheekbone. “Yeah. That was my first thought as well. But we had the hospital run a DNA test a few hours ago just to be sure, and my paternity is positive within 80%.” He shrugged. “Considering we had it rushed and taken care of in less than three hours, I’m willing to accept those odds. And considering the week we’ve both had—”

\--Minato made a pointed nod towards Naruto—

“—I’m willing to accept it. It’s strange, and probably the most unlikely thing I’ve ever seen or will _ever_ see, but… I’m a man of science. If the evidence points towards it being true, then I’ll accept it.”

Jiraiya raised an eyebrow. “Wow.”

Minato nodded, a meek smile growing on his lips. “Yeah. I’ll say.”

“I don’t know whether to be amazed or disturbed at the way you’re just accepting this,” Jiraiya said. He turned to Naruto. “So, what does that make you, then? Besides an enormous pain in the ass?”

“A time traveler, apparently,” Naruto smiled.

Minato didn’t miss the way the other blond watched Jiraiya like he was seeing a living god.

“Well, not _exactly_ ,” He clarified, and Jiraiya shook his head in obvious exhaustion.

“My toads tell me that the blond bastard here is back in town, so I rush in here to investigate, and apparently he’s your _son_ ,” he said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. “Of course. And of course it’s not _exactly_ time travel.” He ran a hand through his hair, and rose to his feet. “I need a drink. Come get me when it’s… later. I don’t know. Just come get me. Maybe dinner or something – I need time to process this a bit.”

He walked towards the door of Minato’s office, his wooden sandals _click-clacking_ like a metronome as he walked.

As the door swung closed behind him, Minato thought he heard the Sage mutter something along the lines of ‘ _where the hell is Tsunade’s booze when you need it?’_

He felt inclined to agree.

 

* * *

 

 

“It is time.”

The rain outside the cave came down in waves, patterned and rhythmed. The dull light from a gas lantern on a wooden table positioned at the center of the room flickered and flashed across the walls, dancing along with the small whickering flame. Bolts of bright white light lit up the far sky outside, shadows disappearing with each flash. A map, scribbled across the surface of a large roll of butcher’s parchment, stretched across the table, books and pens and flasks of water holding it in place as a group of shinobi huddled around it.

A head of orange hair turned up at the newcomer’s voice, and the two others flanking either side of him at the table straightened. He arched his neck at the shadow in the doorway, and motioned the man inside. “You may as well come in here. Don’t catch a cold standing outside like that.”

The shadow flickered, and it took Yahiko only a few moments to realize that the motion wasn’t simply a trick of the light.

He narrowed his eyes, and watched the figure approach them. _‘He’s injured.’_

Madara slinked forward, hand clutching shoulder, and kicked a fourth chair out from underneath the table. He moved in choppy bursts, the mask hiding the grimace that no doubt laid upon his face even as he sucked in a hiss when his bleeding shoulder bumped against the side of the table.

“It is time,” Madara repeated, pausing to catch his breath. “Akatsuki must be mobilized now. It is either now or never.”

Yahiko clenched his jaw. “You know we already told you we would… _think_ about this deal of yours. And it’s only been two weeks. What makes you think I’ve made up my mind?”

The masked man chuckled, the sound like steel grating glass. “Circumstances are different now.”

“Why should that matter?” Yahiko countered, leaning on the table with his elbow. The paper crinkled from the pressure, but held. “We have what you want. You have nothing. The kunai is in our hands. You need to sweeten the pot a little, Madara.”

The Uchiha said nothing. A violent flash of lightning lit the room up in a dazzling display of unnatural white light for two… three heartbeats, then threw everything back into the dull undulations of the gas lamp not a moment later. A loud crack of thunder rumbled through the canyon, distorted by the rain, and Madara leaned forward against the table. “You are meeting with the Leaf tomorrow, are you not? And Hanzou?”

Yahiko blinked, then narrowed his eyes. “How did you know about that?”

“It’s a trap,” Madara continued. “A ruse. They plan to assemble the Akatsuki in one place not to finalize a peace treaty, but to extinguish you for good, in one place.” He reached forward and pinched the flame of the lantern, dropping the entire room into darkness.

The air seemed to tense up, like a coiled spring.

“The Akatsuki wants _peace_ ,” Yahiko hissed from between clenched teeth. “Why would they want to destroy us? We have the potential to change the world.”

Madara snorted in derision. “And it is for that very reason that they will kill you all. Why they _must_ destroy you all. You represent everything that Hanzou and the Leaf hate.” He waved his hand in the air as if gesturing at something. “Change. Revolution. Peace and understanding.”

Yahiko slammed his fist down on the table. A crack of lightning bit down on the valley outside.

The paper tore.

“I have had enough of this!” Yahiko snarled. “We are not puppets. We are not _children_! We are _Akatsuki!_ ”

The rain outside dulled to a low hum. The hiss of water slamming into solid rock outside reduced to a quiet trickle as runoff dripped down the side of the mountain around them.

Nagato and Konan shifted in their seats, watching as the two men narrowed their eyes at one another. The flower in Konan’s hair fidgeted.

It was Yahiko that spoke first.

“Why are you telling me this?”

“A gesture of kindness,” Madara said, as if it was the most obvious and inconsequential thing. “A peace offering. Proof that you can trust me.” The darkness behind Madara’s mask almost gleamed. “That you _must_ trust me.”

Yahiko narrowed his eyes. “You want something for it. I can tell.”

“Mmm,” Madara said, leaning back into his chair, the hole in his mask holding the orange-haired man in trancelike suspense. “And what, pray tell, did you think ‘it is time’ meant?”

Konan frowned, reached out with a pale hand. “Yahiko—”

“No,” Yahiko said. Konan pulled back.

Madara froze. “No?”

“I said no,” he repeated. “The Akatsuki is not a puppet. We will not be doing your bidding simply because you gave us questionable intelligence.” He stood, kicking his chair back, the sound of wood grating on the rocky interior of the cave echoing through the room. “If our organization was meant to survive, then we must learn of these kinds of deceptions ourselves, and make our own mistakes. Not rely on a… on a…” Yahiko swiped his hand at Madara, “On a war-obsessed _zealot_ from the past.”

Nagato watched as Yahiko gathered his things – a canteen on the table, a cloak on the wall – and made for the door.

“The world is different now, Uchiha,” he said with a sense of finality in the doorway, framed by the backdrop of Rain Country’s far mountains. He looked down at Madara’s injured shoulder and smirked, raising a judgmental eyebrow. “And maybe if you want to change it back to the way it was, you should do it yourself.”

The Akatsuki marched out of the room, and not for the first time that week Obito Uchiha felt helpless in face of the whims of the wind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew! You guys here over at AO3 probably couldn't tell, but this chapter took me 2.5 months to write. As of right now, both AO3 and Fanfiction.net are now on the same page - you're both current. I finished catching up with chapter 14 here on AO3 a few weeks ago (hence why there was no update the past few Sundays). 
> 
> Regardless, expect updates to be a BIT fewer and further between - because now I have to actually write them fresh. I'm going as fast as I can, but I'm a college student that needs to make the grade and that takes up 99.99% of my time. So hang in there! I'm not abandoning this fic whatsover... not when we're this close to the finish line.
> 
> Thanks for reading! I'll be spending some time tonight responding to comments here, because it's been too long since I did that last and you guys are fantastic. Thank you so much for the feedback!!
> 
> Regardless, I hope you enjoyed this chapter, and I'll see you for Chapter 16!  
> \- Endo


	16. Chapter 16

"Live from Studio Seven in the Hidden Leaf, this is Konoha News Now.”

Cameras swiveled on tracks around a long wooden desk, and a heavily-manicured woman, sitting straight as a board, came into focus. A large display, mounted to a large bay window showing a charismatic shot of the Leaf Village bumbling about stood behind her, and the words "BREAKING NEWS: Hokage in Jeopardy" were plastered across the entire newsroom in menacing red text.

The newscaster cleared her throat. "Welcome back. If you're just now joining us, we have some breaking news to report on the status of Seventh Hokage Naruto Uzumaki, who fell ill immediately following the final round of the seventy-seventh annual Chuunin Exams."

The display behind the newscaster faded from the newsroom's logo to Naruto's official Hokage photograph, white robes and white hat and bright smile standing out against the black backdrop like sunlit clouds in a dark sky.

"As of six thirty this morning, Studio Seven has learned that the Hokage has been moved to a secure treatment room in the west wing of the Leaf Hospital, where he is being closely monitored. He is under intense guard, and witnesses claim that only the Hokage's greatest confidants are being granted access to see him at this time."

The camera shifted angles. "In a Studio Seven exclusive, with us now are some of those very confidants: Lord Sixth, Kakashi Hatake, Lord Seventh's top advisor Shikamaru Nara, and in a Leaf Village first, the Fifth Kazekage of the Hidden Sand." The newscaster pivoted in her chair, and the camera panned out to show the four shinobi, seated in a row behind an extension of the newscaster's desk. "Gentlemen, welcome."

"Anytime," Kakashi smiled. He leaned forward onto the tabletop, the whites of his robe catching under his elbow as he did so.

"So, let's start with you, Lord Nara," the newscaster began, reading from her call cards. "Is there anything new that the Uzumaki Administration can reveal at this time about what exactly it is that is going on?"

Shikamaru sighed and crossed his arms across his chest. "Well, Yachi, unfortunately there's just not much that even we know at this point. Our top forensic investigators are looking into the matter themselves as we speak, and as a safety precaution all foreign exam participants are being asked to remain in the Leaf until such time that we know more."

The newscaster nodded. "I see. Lord Gaara, you and your foreign contingent have been essentially quarantined here in the Leaf until further notice. Is this likely to strain foreign affairs between nations such as the Land of Fire and the Land of Wind?"

Gaara turned his steely green eyes on her, his expression emotionless. "I was the one that suggested the quarantine."

The newscaster blinked.

A moment of tense silence drifted through the studio. Finally, she frowned, tapped her cards against the desk again, and nodded. "Oh. I see. And what of the other Three Kage?"

"The other Kage and myself owe Naruto Uzumaki a great deal," Gaara said. "We all agreed quite quickly that a quarantine, while not particularly glamorous, is the fastest way to get to the bottom of things."

"Do you suspect any of your shinobi to be at fault?" the newscaster asked.

"Of course not," Gaara said. "However, I am not arrogant enough to assume that everyone from the Hidden Sand is infallible. If the perpetrator is, for whatever reason, a resident from my country, he or she will be dealt with in such a way that both Leaf and Sand laws are upheld."

"And we plan on coordinating with _all_ of the nations that participated in this year's exams in the coming days in order to ensure they get home as soon as humanly possible," Shikamaru continued. "As it stands now, we have ruled out a great number of theories. At this point, all we're doing now is narrowing the gap."

"What kinds of theories?" the newscaster asked.

Shikamaru took a deep breath. "Well, anything involving domestic or foreign terror. We know at very least that this wasn't an attack on Lord Seventh. This was, if anything, simply an accident. Most likely a result of some experimental technology, or a problem with an untested jutsu." Shikamaru smirked. "Or it could have just been something he ate. Who knows."

The newscaster chuckled, and turned to Kakashi. "As the Hokage's seat is currently empty," she continued, "there's a lot of confusion right now as to who's in control of the village."

"Yes," Kakashi said almost absentmindedly. "It'd look that way, wouldn't it?"

The newscaster frowned. "Could you expand on that? Are you Lord Uzumaki's temporary replacement, as some of our sources have been telling us?"

"As a matter of fact, I am not," Kakashi said. "Although that is the proper chain of command. As I am currently busy with other duties, I am unable to take on the role, and have instead passed it along to someone else."

The banner beneath him on the screen flashed, and the text changed to an all-white ‘“I am unable to take on the role” of temporary Hokage, Lord Sixth says'.

The newscaster frowned. "Interesting. Would you be willing to say who it is?"

Kakashi chuckled. "Of course. Although I can tell you she's not happy with it."

Shikamaru leaned forward. "As of right now, until such time that Lord Seventh recovers, Lord Fifth, Lady Tsunade, will be in charge of the Leaf Village."

The newscaster looked shocked. She cast surprised glances past the TV camera, as if speaking a silent conversation with someone standing just past it, before sputtering and returning her gaze to the camera itself. "You... heard it here first, folks. Lady Tsunade, Fifth Hokage, is the interim leader of the Hidden Leaf." She turned again, and looked back at Shikamaru. "Any reason why Tsunade was chosen in particular?"

"Lady Tsunade has experience working under intense pressure, lead the village through the most trying time in Leaf Village history, and is a war hero," Shikamaru said, as if it had been well-rehearsed. "I have the utmost confidence in her ability to lead, especially considering the fact I don't feel as though she'll be in charge for very long."

"Lady Tsunade is nearly eighty years old, and has been retired for some time," the newscaster said. "Is there any worry that she would be considered... out of touch?"

"Of course not," Shikamaru said, raising an eyebrow. "Lord Seventh has known Lady Tsunade since he was a child. He trusts her with not just his life, but his livelihood. His family. Every one of us. She is a fantastic medic, a fantastic person, and _was_ a fantastic Hokage. I have no doubt in her abilities." He turned again, and this time addressed the camera directly. “This is only a temporary measure. Lord Sixth and I, along with Sakura Haruno, the Leaf’s chief medic, plan on leaving as soon as possible on an important ambassadorial meeting. Once this is finished, we suspect that everything will go back to normal, and we’ll be able to finish the chuunin exams like we always have.”

“And I plan on assisting in any way that I can,” Gaara added.

The newscaster blinked. “Well then. Lord Nara, you said you were leaving soon for a meeting – did you say ambassadorial?”

Shikamaru nodded. “Yes.”

“Care to elaborate?” The newscaster frowned. “When might your party be leaving?”

“As a matter of fact,” Kakashi said with a smile, “we’ve already left.”

And he disappeared in an explosive plume of white.

The newscaster coughed, waving her hand in front of her face to try and dispel the smoke. “What? What’s going on?”

Shikamaru heaved a heavy sigh, grumbling something under his breath. “Troublesome,” he muttered, shaking his head. “He wasn’t supposed to dispel until after the interview is over.”

“Well…” the newscaster said, eyeing her producer from behind the camera again, “I think it’s over anyway.”

Shikamaru sighed again. “Alright then. It was a pleasure as always, Yachi.” He looked around, watching the way the room’s ventilation system attempted to suck away the smoke. “And… sorry about the exit.”

Yachi opened her mouth to reply when Shikamaru disappeared as well.

“Ninja,” she grumbled, waving her hand around again.

It was only after she had begun to flap her cue cards in the air did she realize the Kazekage was still sitting at the table.

* * *

 

The Leaf village was beautiful in the spring. Naruto always thought so.

He stood on the crest of a small hill near the Hyuuga compound, and watched as a gust of wind plucked a wave of cherry blossoms from the army of trees that stood at attention across the shallow valley. He watched them trace the currents in the air like an artist’s brush, painting broad strokes of reds and whites on the perfect blue sky, and he watched the way they deposited themselves along the banks of the koi pond that stretched across the far wall of the estate and twisted out of view behind a low hedge. 

He watched a procession of white weave its way through the gardens below him, somber and slow, and sighed.

Spring was beautiful, yes, but it was never perfect.

Nothing ever was.

 

* * *

 

 

When Naruto made his way back into Minato’s office later that afternoon, the Hokage didn’t even bother to look up.

“How was it?” he said.

“It was a funeral,” Naruto said. “It went about as well as a funeral could.”

Minato nodded, but kept his nose in his book.

“Weren’t you supposed to… y’know… be there?” Naruto asked, leaning himself back down into his chair with a sigh.

“That was a private funeral. The state one will be held next week.” He shrugged. “It’s a Hyuuga ceremony, so we choose not to interfere.”

Naruto frowned. “That’s not how we do it. We’ve always combined them into one big funeral. It lets the village come together as one.” He scratched at his chin with his hand. “Helps prevent one clan from feeling too left out, y’know?”

No sooner had the words left his lips did Naruto connect the dots.

“Uchiha,” he whispered to himself.

“Sorry?” Minato asked.

“It was the Uchiha,” Naruto said. “That’s why the tradition was changed.”

“The Uchiha?” Minato asked, looking up for the first time. He eared a page in his book to mark his place, and began to swivel his pen between his fingertips. Naruto could almost _feel_ Minato’s curiosity burning a hole through him. “Did they do something?”

“I guess now’s as good a time as any to tell you,” Naruto said, chewing on his lip. He thought about what to say for a moment, then just started with the simplest explanation he could think of. “The Uchiha… are gone.”

Minato blinked. “Gone?”

He nodded. “Yeah. It started with little things - like with the Hyuuga’s funeral. They started to shut themselves off from the rest of the village, doing more and more things privately, and it just built from there. At first it was an honor thing, a matter of pride for them, but after a while they were so disconnected from the village, things started to get out of hand.” He paused. “They thought the Leaf was scheming against them, so they started scheming themselves.”

Minato raised an eyebrow. “That’s impossible. They’re one of the founding clans, they can’t just…” He bit his lip, looked down at the table, then looked back up into Naruto’s eyes, a sense of sudden realization seeming to wash over him. “When you say ‘gone’, what exactly do you mean?”

“They died,” Naruto said, eyes cool as glass. “They tried to stage a coup, and they were killed.”

“All of them?”

“All except for one,” he said.

“By who?” Minato asked. His voice sounded a bit desperate. “Who killed them all?”

“Who do you think?” Naruto said, raising an eyebrow.

Minato chewed on that for a moment, spinning the pen in his fingers as he thought. “It was another Uchiha,” he said after a few moments, and his hand stopped spinning. “Another Uchiha killed the clan.” He leaned forward, dropping the pen in the process, and looked at Naruto in the eye. “Who?”

Naruto stared back.

It was the first time, Minato would note later, that he realized just how _tired_ his son looked.

“Itachi,” Minato breathed. His eyes were wide as night, sharp as flint.

“Itachi,” Naruto nodded with a sigh. “Sasuke survived. That was the only way he would do it – is if Sasuke wasn’t killed that night.”

“Who would do something like that? _Why_ would he do something like that?”

Naruto couldn’t seem to meet his father’s gaze. “It was… an order. From the village government.”

Minato leaned backwards and fell into his chair, eyes disbelieving. He flinched, then took a deep breath, closing his eyes as if to brace himself for something. “Was it… was it one of mine?”

“No,” Naruto said with a small, sad smile. “You weren’t around then. This was years ago – I was only seven when it happened. I don’t remember much from before that time, but I _do_ remember the village being very different the months afterward.”

“The Fifth Hokage, then?” Minato pressed.

“No, the Third took over for you after you died,” Naruto said. “It was… a difficult time for him. He let some… nasty voices whisper in his ear, and he made the wrong choice.” He shook his head, and leaned back in his chair. “But I know what that’s like – making hard decisions. It’s tough, but they have to be made. I don’t envy him, but I also don’t pity him.”

Minato shook his head, and ran his hand up into his hair. He groaned. “So it was Danzou, then. Danzou came up with that plan.”

Naruto nodded. “Yeah.”

“Why am I not surprised,” he muttered to himself. “Fugaku,” he said, “what did you do to deserve this?”

They both sat in relative silence for a few moments, Naruto resting his eyes while Minato let his mind chew on the deluge of new information it had just received.

“When we figure this time travel jutsu out,” Minato started, “which we _will_ , I want you to write me a timeline of everything that happened in your world. All the major events and catastrophes – at least, all the ones that can be prevented.” He shook his head. “I know it’ll do little in the grand scheme of things because if I prevent one thing from happening it’ll cause something else I _won’t_ know about ahead of time, but…” he took a deep breath.

“Whatever it takes to avoid the tragedies of my timeline,” Naruto said quietly.

Minato blinked. “I…”

He smiled – a soft smile, hidden behind an fine sheen of exhaustion, but a smile nonetheless. “Thank you. Sincerely.”

The rest of their morning passed as if the conversation had never taken place, and Naruto couldn’t help but feel a sense of relief – a sense of _calm_ over something that was gnawing away at the back of his gut, that he wasn’t even aware of.

He looked out the window at the noonday sun, and hoped – just _hoped_ the feeling would carry over into the evening.

He had an appointment, after all.

 

* * *

 

 

“How the hell is that even possible?”

Naruto smiled, biting his lip with his teeth in an attempt to hold back a bout of rather inappropriate laughter. “It’s simple. Just try not to focus too much on it.”

“But that’s the _entire point_ of gathering nature chakra through Sage Mode!” Jiraiya said, walking across Minato’s back garden from where he was meditating and getting in Naruto’s face. “You’re breaking a fundamental principle of how this is taught in the first place. You can’t just rewrite the rulebook!”

Naruto raised an eyebrow, and looked down at himself. “I think the fact I’m doing it right now is proof I _can_ , and that I _did_.”

“You know, I’m not entirely convinced you’re not just using a Henge to make your eyes look like that,” Jiraiya said, furrowing his brow. He squinted, as if inspecting Naruto’s face for some sort of blemish. “I don’t even see a single wart. Are you _sure_ you’re a toad sage?”

“Boys,” Kushina called out from the back patio. “Play nice. Dinner’s almost ready.”

He smiled when he heard Jiraiya mumble “damn jinchuuriki” under his breath with a huff as he turned around and walked back across the yard, and sighed as he eased himself out of his simplest iteration of Sage Mode.

“If you want, I can show you something a little less… difficult,” Naruto said with a cheeky grin.

Jiraiya froze in his tracks, then spun on his heel and growled at him. “Yeah? Enlighten me.”

He just shrugged, and raised his hand.

The quiet murmuring of spring and dull hum of the village around them was blasted away in a roar of pure chakra, and Jiraiya took a step back as a massive orb of spiraling orange energy came ablaze like a small sun in Naruto’s hand.

“Whoa, careful!” Jiraiya said, leaping back. “You’ll take out a mountain with that thing!”

“I’ve done that already a few times,” Naruto said, smirking. “Trust me, it’s as cool as you think it is.”

“That’s a Rasengan, sure, but…” Jiraiya squinted, the bumpy nose and squared pupils of his own imperfect sage mode sensing something strange. His eyes widened. “Is… is this the thing you almost hit me with? Back in the forest?”

“Yeah, something like it,” Naruto said, wincing a bit. “Sorry about that.”

Jiraiya ignored him, and approached the sphere like a cat approaching a stranger. “This… is incredible. The nature chakra is completely embedded in it.” He turned and looked into Naruto’s eyes, surprise evident on his face. “I have to say I’m impressed.”

“This jutsu took me over three months to perfect,” Naruto said with a sigh, looking down at his creation himself. “I just wish it were under better circumstances.”

“Three months?!” Jiraiya gaped, looking Naruto up and down. “ _You?!”_

Naruto twitched a finger, and quick as a whip the Rasengan morphed into something entirely different.

“This is the Rasenshuriken,” Naruto said, watching as the spiraling disk of sharpened chakra cut into the air like a wind turbine. “It’s an S-ranked technique that, unless thrown, causes irreversible damage to the caster.” He winced at the phantom pain in his missing hand. “Learned that one the hard way.”

“Wait,” Jiraiya interrupted, aghast. “Did you say _thrown?_ ”

“Yeah,” Naruto said. “How else did you think I almost took you and the Fourth out back in that fight?”

“Stretchy limbs?” Jiraiya said with a snort. “I don’t know.”

“You know, you joke,” Naruto grinned, “but that’s one of my son’s teammate’s parlor tricks.” He laughed. “As a matter of fact, it’s the kid of one of _your_ teammates.”

“Ahh, so Tsunade finally got over Dan?” Jiraiya said, with a faraway look in his eye.

Naruto winked. “Something like that.”

Jiraiya froze, and turned to look back at the house behind them. “Ahh, so does that mean your little brat’s a genin? Have to say, I’m a bit surprised.”

Naruto frowned. He raised his arm over his head, and with a blast of chakra from the palm of his hand, he sent the Rasenshuriken careening high into the air. It burst like a firework, and the windows in Minato and Kushina’s house rattled from the shockwave.

“He’s going through a lot right now,” he said. “Cut him some slack.”

“Oh, hey,” Jiraiya said, blinking when he realized what he’d said, and also that Naruto had turned and was making his way back into the house. “I didn’t mean it like that. I apologize if I offended or anything.”

“No, no, it’s fine,” Naruto said. He turned around and gave the man a big smile. “I’m sure dinner’s ready. Let’s head inside.”

The two made their way into the house as the sun began to dip past the imposing frame of the building’s roof, and when the sliding door was slid back in place, a rock in the garden disappeared in a poof of smoke.

 

* * *

 

 

“So, Boruto,” Minato said with a practiced smile, “what sorts of jutsu are you good at? Have any specialties?”

They were gathered around a giant pot of stew that Kushina had thrown together several hours prior, and the dinner soundtrack of spoons scraping against bowls as they ate otherwise remained uninterrupted. A sky of midnight blue and pastel reds was framed by the wide window above the kitchen sink, and the low hiss of an incoming storm whipping at the trees outside weaved its way through the cracks in the doors.  A pair of extra folding chairs, brought in from storage to accommodate the additional company, leaned against the small table in Minato and Kushina’s kitchen, and Boruto and Naruto found themselves sitting next to one another in what was quite possibly the strangest dinner arrangement either of them had ever seen.

“Yeah, I’m interested myself,” Jiraiya asked, as curiosity got the better of him and he lifted the cover over the mysterious dish that sat abandoned next to his bowl. He blanched when he saw the two-day old plate of unfinished scrambled eggs sitting underneath, and pushed it aside. “So, what kinds of stuff do you do as a ninja of the future?”

Boruto looked up from his untouched bowl of soup and frowned. “I dunno.”

Jiraiya rolled his eyes. “Aren’t we chatty.”

“Well,” Minato coughed, “I, for one, look forward to a demonstration.” He forced a smile, digging around in his soup with his spoon. “Would you perhaps be up for a spar later?”

Boruto said nothing, opting to instead bore holes in the bowl in front of him.

“Hey,” Naruto whispered in his direction, nudging him with his elbow, “your grandfather just asked you something.”

Boruto grimaced, but remained silent.

“Don’t be rude,” Naruto said, narrowing his eyes.

Again, Boruto said nothing.

When Naruto twisted in his chair to reprimand the boy, Minato raised a hand and gave them an embarrassed smile. “Oh, no, please, it’s fine. Maybe… uh, later.” He turned back to Jiraiya, and cleared his throat. “So, Jiraiya, have you or the Third heard any news about Orochimaru?”

“Nope,” the man shrugged. “Nothing. The damn snake’s dropped off the face of the Earth. There’s no telling what kind of putrid stinkhole he’s curled himself around this time.” He set his spoon aside and picked up his bowl, draining the broth with a noisy gulp. “It’s gonna take me months to reorganize my spy network. Bastard knew where all of my contacts were, and he’s sure as hell going to avoid them.”

“Any news on the Hidden Sea village?” Naruto asked.

Jiraiya rolled his eyes. “Come on now. It’s been what, six hours? Toads aren’t exactly supposed to be able to swim in the ocean, you know. It’s going to take a while for my scout to get there.”

“But he’ll be able to reverse summon us once he gets there, right?” Naruto asked.

“ _She_ ,” Jiraiya corrected as if it was the most obvious thing in the world, and grunted. “Yeah, we’ll be fine. It’ll probably take another day or so. She’s my fastest summon, but even toads have their limits.”

Naruto sighed, nodding. “Alright, good to hear.”

“What’s your plan once we _get_ there?” Minato asked, resting his hand in his chin. When both Jiraiya and Kushina turned to look at him with skeptical expressions on their faces, Minato shrugged. “What? Of course I’m going with them. A brand new village we’ve never heard of, and we’re going to just barge in there? I’d rather I went to solidify some sort of peaceful agreement with their people before we cause any true diplomatic damage.”

“Spoken like a true Kage,” Jiraiya smiled into his glass, as he took a swig. “Besides, you probably won’t be able to get out much once things start winding down anyways. May as well get your vacation time in while you still can.”

Minato shrugged. “Well, whatever it is, we should be packed and ready to go for tomorrow night–“

–he raised a finger in Jiraiya’s direction when the Toad Sage opened his mouth to argue–

“–in the _event_ that things are all set up for us to leave.”

Jiraiya grumbled something under his breath, then nodded. “Alright, fine. I’m coming too, if there’s no complaints there.”

Minato nodded in agreement, then turned to the two time travelers. “Will that work for you?”

Naruto chewed on his lip for a moment, seeming to be lost in thought, before he blinked and nodded with a small smile. “Yeah. We’ll be ready.”

Kushina’s eyes lit up, but Minato cut her off before she could even properly open her mouth. “No, don’t bother asking. I don’t want you coming along. You might get hurt, and I don’t want that to happen.”

She ground her teeth together and frowned at him, crossing her arms, but otherwise remained silent.

Minato grinned, looking back and forth from Jiraiya to Kushina. “You know, I honestly can’t tell which of you is more the child sometimes.”

Kushina stuck her tongue out at him. Jiraiya rolled his eyes.

Snorting, Naruto pushed his chair away from the table and stood, collecting what was left of his meal in his hands as he did so. “Well alright then. Anyone else finished?”

When Jiraiya and Kushina offered their bowls to be collected as well – the former with a quiet ‘thanks’ and the latter with an appreciative smile – Naruto took them to the kitchen sink and began to rinse them out.

He stared out the window into the backyard, where the moonlit shadows of tree limbs dancing in the wind flickered across the grass. A row of dark clouds rooted themselves on the horizon, and Naruto frowned.

Clearing his throat, he turned back around and smiled at the group. “Well, I think I’m going to go take a walk.”

Jiraiya looked at him, raising an eyebrow. “In this weather?”

“Yeah, why not,” he shrugged with a stretched smile, and looked down at Boruto. “I’ll be back in a little bit. You gonna be okay while I’m out?”

Boruto blinked up at him, then shrugged. “Yeah, I guess.”

“Alright then!” Naruto said with an air of finality, standing up straight and heading for the door.

He paused for a moment when he was a few hundred feet from the home, and watched as the upstairs light in Minato’s study went out and another Naruto snuck out through the window.

With a smirk, the first Naruto disappeared in a cloud of smoke, the winds whipping away what little evidence remained of his existence.

* * *

 

“You’re early.”

It wasn’t so much a statement as it was a sign of strength – a power play. Naruto was all too familiar with that game. “No, I’d say I’m right on time. All that mattered is that you’d show, and you have.”

He turned down the aisles of gravestones and watched as a cloaked figure did the same from across the cemetery, mirroring his actions as he moved. The winds twisted the long, spindly clouds in the sky around the moon above them, blotting out the light and casting dark shadows over the dusk-embalmed village.

“Well,” Obito drawled, pausing and threading his hands over one another across his chest, “for what purpose have you dragged me out here? Have you not humiliated me enough?”

“Drop the act, Obito,” Naruto said with a snort, shaking his head. “We both know you’re out of options. It was like this in my world, too.”

The boy said nothing for a moment. “Your… world?”

“My world,” Naruto repeated. “I’m from the future, Obito. Well…” he frowned, staring at the ground, “one of them. It’s easier for me to understand if I think of myself as being _in_ the past, rather than being _from_ the future.” He gave a tentative smile, and sighed. “Well, I suppose it all depends on perspective.”

“Don’t play games with me,” Obito said, his fist clenching into a ball at his side.

“Your name is Obito Uchiha,” Naruto began, voice even and emotionless. “You were ‘killed’ at the battle of Kannabi Bridge several years ago when a collapsed cave crushed you. You gave one of your eyes to Kakashi Hatake, your teammate, and then you died.”

He shook his head. “Except you didn’t. You lived by some stroke of luck, and ended up in Madara Uchiha’s care. He helped you heal, helped you rebuild you strength.” He paused, and Obito fidgeted. “And then he tricked you.”

“Stop,” Obito growled. The wind whistled between the graves, cracking tree branches against one another and howling like a wounded dog.

“What is it you want, Obito?” Naruto said over the wind. “A world of lies? A world of fake promises, and fake happiness?”

“I want _her_!” Obito shouted, and a crack of lightning cascaded across the sky.

“Grow up!” Naruto said. “This isn’t a game, Obito!”

“Why not?” Obito said. “Why _can’t_ it be a game?”

“Because you aren’t the only person on this planet, Obito,” Naruto said, taking a deep breath, moving a step forward. “Listen to me. I’ve seen it. It’s happened in my world, and as enticing as it may be at first glance, it’s nothing but a sham.” He shook his head, and bit his lip. “Madara is being manipulated, Obito. And I don’t want you – at least, the you of this world, to fall for the same traps.”

The masked boy clenched his fist again, then hissed, falling to his knees with a pained gasp.

“That’s it?” he bit out. “That’s all you plan to do? To _talk me out of it?”_

“Yeah,” Naruto said, completely serious. “That’s it. It worked before.” He took a few more steps until he was standing over Obito’s crouched form, and knelt down on a knee in front of him. He reached out and touched his shoulder. “You’re still hurt? Let me—“

“Don’t touch me!” Obito snarled, snapping back with a roar of pain and frustration and confusion. “I don’t even know who you are! You’re just… some sort of freak impostor hellbent on destroying my life!”

“The only person destroying your life is you, Obito,” Naruto said, turning. He looked down at the marble gravestone that lay before them, and rubbed his fingers through the sharp, unworn edges of the name that started a war. “Rin died, yes, but you didn’t.”

The wind around them died to a low growl, and the moon disappeared behind a foray of clouds.

“Kakashi lost you both,” Naruto said, looking up at the sky, admiring the way it marbled and swirled above them. “He lost you both, and still he survived. He may be broken, but…” Naruto pushed off with a hand on his knee and raised himself to his feet, “we’re all a little broken. At least in some way.”

He turned, looked down at Obito, and offered a hand.

“We just need someone there to help us put the pieces back together.”

Obito fidgeted, his turned towards the ground. When Naruto leaned over, he realized the boy had removed his mask.

“Or maybe,” Obito mumbled to himself, “we can rearrange the pieces ourselves. Rebuild something newer.”

He turned and looked up at the one-armed man, his Sharingan eye pulsing.

He smiled, his nostrils flaring and teeth glaringly white in the sterile darkness.

“Something _better!”_

Naruto grunted as Obito thrust a kunai through his chest.

“I don’t know who you are, and I’m aware that you can kill me,” Obito snorted in hysteric derision, “but I don’t care. And part of me thinks you don’t care either.”

Naruto had just enough time to look down at him and raise an eyebrow before he disappeared in a raucous poof of white.

Obito blinked. “A clone?”

“A _shadow_ clone,” Naruto said, appearing behind the boy in a burst of leaves. He snatched Obito’s wrist with his own. “You’re wrong, Obito. I _do_ care. I care a lot more than you’ll ever know.” He turned the boy around on his feet until he was staring him in the eye, blue to red. “You’re right that I could kill you if I wanted to, but I _don’t want to._ ”

“ _Who are you_?” Obito repeated, his face contorted into a mixture of surprise and anguish and _fear_.

Naruto narrowed his eyes. “My name is Naruto Uzumaki. I’m the son of Minato Namikaze and Kushina Uzumaki, and I’m the past, present and future jinchuuriki of the Nine-Tailed asshole fox.”

He grimaced when he felt a prod in his chest. “Working title.”

“That’s impossible,” Obito said, scowling.

“I’ve been getting that a lot recently,” Naruto said. “I guess time travel is too weird a thing for most people to take at face value.”

Naruto watched his face – the way the scars framed his Sharingan eye, the way it scowled in a way a child’s face shouldn’t. A child trying to find a place in the troublesome world of adulthood, clawing out a path for himself.

He saw Boruto.

Not for the first time that week, Naruto felt a tinge of guilt. For what, exactly, he was unsure. But it gnawed away at him like a hungry dog, chewing its way into his mind every chance he let it.

The rain certainly didn’t help, either.

Naruto sighed, let go of the boy’s arm, and took a step back. “I need your help.”

Obito scoffed. “So you say,” he said, frowning at him. “But why do you need _me?”_

“Your eye,” Naruto said, and he met Obito’s gaze with his own. “You can travel through dimensions. I need you… _we_ need you.”

“For what?”

“To get home,” Naruto said with a hollow smile. “We’re stuck here, and we don’t belong. You have the best odds of being helpful.” He turned away, running his hand along the back of his neck. “And… I think it would be good.”

Obito blinked, narrowed his eyes. “What would be good?”

“There’s more to life that chasing after something impossible, Obito,” Naruto said, shaking his head. “I think it would be good for you to join us. It would give you… some perspective.”

“And what you’re doing _isn’t_ impossible,” Sarcasm dripped from Obito’s lips. “I’m sure.”

Naruto turned, and shoved a finger into his chest. The boy hissed in pain, but stood his ground. “Look, I _know_ where this path leads. I know what happens. I _lived_ it!”

He paused, collected himself. “You succeeded in the end, Obito,” he breathed, shaking his head. “Everything worked out for the better when it was all said and done, but not without cost.”

Obito froze, eye wide and shocked. “It… worked?”

Naruto nodded, looking down at the ground. His hand was clenched into a fist at his side. “Yeah. You won, Obito. You got to see Rin in the end.”

He turned, and met Obito’s gaze again, and the boy started. “Then… why are you here?”

“Because it didn’t _work_ ,” Naruto said, leaning in close. “It’s a pipe dream, Obito. It’s a flawed plan from the start, built on lies and deception that go far above _anything_ either of us could have expected the first time.”

“The… first time?”

“Yes,” Naruto said, sighing in relief when he felt the boy’s hesitation through his voice. Thunder, low and far away, rumbled through the village. “I don’t want you to make those same mistakes, Obito. Like I said.”

He pulled a rolled up piece of parchment from under his coat, and handed it over. “Have you ever heard of the Hidden Sea Village?”

Obito looked from Naruto to the parchment, then back to Naruto again, and raised an eyebrow. “No.”

Naruto pushed the paper into Obito’s hands.

“What is this?” he asked, frowning. He unrolled it, and looked up at Naruto again. “A map?”

“Yeah,” the blond said, leaning over. He brushed away the raindrops that were beading across the surface and pointed at an empty spot over the ocean. “This is where we’re going.”

“There’s nothing there.”

“That’s because it hasn’t been discovered yet,” Naruto said. “But it’s there. And we need to go there to find answers.”

“Like what?”

“Like how to get home, for one,” Naruto said, sniffling. “And to figure out how we got here in the first place.”

Obito blinked, then scowled, looking up at Naruto. “Well what do you need me for, then?” He rolled the map up and shoved it back into Naruto’s hand. “How do you know I’ll be able to actually do anything?”

“I have a feeling,” Naruto said, face steeled and expressionless. “Because I _knew you_ , Obito.”

A bolt of lightning flashed across the sky, and the crack of thunder that followed was loud and wild.

Obito was silent.

“Just… come with me,” Naruto pleaded. He stretched out his hand again. This time, Obito didn’t shirk away. “Please. What have you got to lose?”

He looked at the extended hand, then to the eyes – _those eyes_.

Naruto watched the emotions play out across Obito’s face, watched the way his eyes glazed over in intense thought.

When he reached out and clasped Naruto’s hand with a strength that left very little room for discontent, the Akatsuki – _Obito’s_ Akatsuki died for good.

 

* * *

 

 

Minato hurried his way up the stairs, and burst through the door to his study with a smile on his face. “Jiraiya-sensei, hurry up.”

“What, Minato? Did you find something?” Jiraiya said, moving through the house with, admittedly, far less enthusiasm than the Fourth Hokage was.

“A fresh pair of eyes never hurts,” Minato said, as he began moving aside the stacks of paper he had piled up in Naruto’s chair in the time since the man had been gone. Lightning flashed across the sky through the window on the far wall and the lights flickered, but he paid it no mind.

“Alright,” he muttered to himself once the seat was cleared, and Jiraiya lowered himself down with a small smirk on his face.

“You know, I haven’t seen you this excited about something in a long time,” Jiraiya said, watching Minato move around his desk and assemble a small stack of books and notes and paper under his arm.

Minato smiled, and nodded. “It has been a long time, hasn’t it?” He moved behind his chair, and tossed the light jacket he was wearing over the back of it. “We’ve been trying to figure out how to get this jutsu to work, but I don’t even have solid proof that the theory is even legitimate. We could be dealing with parallel universes, parallel timelines, linear time travel…” He huffed, and lowered himself into his own chair. “It’s been exhausting.”

“You’re Hokage now,” the sage said. “Everything’s going to be exhausting.”

Minato leaned over his desk, and frowned. “Hey, that’s odd.”

Jiraiya raised an eyebrow. “Hmm?”

Minato shuffled a few books across his desktop, as if trying to find something. “Where did it go?” He lifted up a pile of papers and peeked at a spot in the middle, then frowned and moved to the next one. “I could have sworn…”

“What?” Jiraiya asked, sitting up in his chair. “Something missing?”

“The map we were using…” Minato muttered. “I left it rolled up, right… right here.”

He pointed at an empty spot on his desk – just large enough for a scroll to fit.

“Maybe you put it somewhere else?” Jiraiya suggested.

Minato shuffled things around, digging a little trench. “Maybe I just buried it on accident.”

“You really ought to clean this place up a bit, Minato,” Jiraiya said. “This really isn’t like you, being this disorganized.”

“No, no,” Minato said under his breath, “I know where everything is like this. Everything has a place. It makes sense to me. But…”

“Apparently not,” Jiraiya finished, yawning. “At least buy some more bookshelves.”

“Kushina won’t let me,” Minato said almost to himself, and he frowned down at his desk.

His eye caught something underneath a few books.

He reached out with his free hand, and plucked a single piece of paper from the trough where the map once was.

He froze in his tracks.

“The Hyuuga’s state funeral invitation,” Minato breathed.

Hiashi.

_“So how did you know Hiashi in your time?” Minato asked, as he watched Naruto slip his shoes on at the door earlier that morning._

_“Oh, yeah,” Naruto said with a cheeky smile. “I probably should have explained that better, eh?”_

_He tapped the toe of his sandal on the edge of the entryway to make sure they were on right, and then stood. “Well, Hiashi’s actually my father-in-law.”_

_Minato blinked. “Father-in-law? Really?” He furrowed his brow in surprise. “I didn’t know Hiashi was even planning on having children.”_

_Naruto shrugged, and moved to open the door. “Yep. He had two, actually. Both beautiful. And he’s a fantastic grandpa.”_

_He sighed. “Well, was. It’s a shame he won’t be able to have that life now.”_

He hadn’t thought anything of it at the time. It was just harmless discussion – a simple goodbye for the afternoon that turned into an impromptu conversation.

But now it all made sense.

The papers under Minato’s arms fell to the floor in an explosive crash, scattering in all directions.

Jiraiya lurched in his seat. “The hell, Minato?”

“That’s it,” he said, eyes shimmering in excitement. “ _That’s it!”_

 

* * *

 

 

Deep within a dark forest, nestled between the roots of a massive tree, a man waited.

He sat cross-legged in the shade - mostly alone, mostly motionless.

His eyes were closed, but still he watched.

He watched as a caravan of men, draped in white robes, snaked their way through the underbrush. He watched the way they pulled the baskets off their backs as they approached, and watched the way they dropped to their knees before him once they entered his clearing.

“My lord,” one man said, rising. He pulled his hood from his face, and his head, bald and smooth, reflected the glow of the morning sun. “We bring you your meal.”

“This is understandable,” the waiting man said, muttering beneath his breath. He paused, turned, and looked to his left, away from the convoy. “I cannot sanction this.”

He turned again, looking dead center with his hooded eyes, and shook his head. “And what of my daughter?”

The bald man blinked in confusion, then sighed, smiling. “Come,” he said to those surrounding him, and picked up the basket with tender hands. The group edged closer, awestruck.

They watched as the waiting man turned away again, as if looking (but not quite looking) at some invisible consulate.

“I shan’t accept such an invitation,” he said. “Reject it at once.”

The bald man coughed into his hand with a gentle sense of poise, and lowered the basket in front of the waiting man’s crossed legs. He made certain not to place it on any of the thin tendrils of roots that snaked up the man’s legs and fed underneath his clothes, then took a long step back once he was sure the basket was in the right place.

He waited for the waiting man to say something, to react, but when nothing came and the man continued to mutter nonsense to himself, he let out a quiet breath of acceptance and turned away.

“Hoshu.”

The man jumped.

When he turned back around again, the waiting man was looking at him. Not off to the side, not at the sky, or at the ground.

Directly at him.

Hoshu shivered. Those eyes – those cold, dead, _blind_ eyes. Yellow as the setting sun, empty and unforgiving.

Those eyes bore right through him.

“Thank you, Hoshu.”

“O-of course, my liege,” the man stuttered. He turned back to the others, and pointed down the valley. “Go! Inform the—”

“They are coming,” the man muttered.

Hoshu froze midsentence, and looked down at the other man once again. “’They are coming’?”

He was silent for a moment, anticipating a response, but the waiting man had closed his eyes once more.

“Inform the village,” he said with a sigh, eyes unbelieving. “Inform them at once.”

“What shall we say?” One of the robed men said.

Hoshu turned, and looked him dead in the eye. He raised his hood over his head, and collected himself.

“Tell them,” he said, “that the Great One has spoken to us.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Plot development!
> 
> I can apologize for taking so long (again) to write this, but then I'd just be a broken record. So for now I'll just say that I really don't think the next chapter will take quite as long.
> 
> Thanks to those that commented/messaged me regarding the Hokage Monument being incorrect in chapter 14! I'll be fixing that ASAP, once I have some more time to go dig it out. Sometimes I can barely keep my own story straight in my head. And if you reviewed at all, thank you so much for taking the time. I'm going to try my best to be better about responding to reviews, because I feel terrible for hardly ever responding to them.
> 
> Speaking of reviews, Blonding has hit 1k reviews on FFN.net! That's a HUGE milestone I wasn't expecting, so seriously - thank you so much. It means the world to me.
> 
> Merry Christmas to all those that celebrate it, and I'll see you next year!
> 
> -Endo


	17. Chapter 17

“You should probably put your mask back on.”

Obito blinked. “Why?”

Naruto shrugged. “Because my father is going to show up any moment now looking for me, and I’d prefer to break things to him _slowly_ rather than just letting him stumble in here and realize the enemy he’s been worried about the past week is, in fact, his old student.”

It was almost as though Naruto could read the future, because no sooner had Obito slipped his mask back over his face did Minato appear before them in a crack of light, papers swirling around him in a vortex of pastel white.

“I figured it out!” he said, eyes gleaming, mouth wide. “I figured…”

He stopped, looked past his violently thrashing hair into the windy cemetery. A crack of lightning lit up the sky, and he winced as a burst of wind sent a flash of heavy, sloppy rain into his face.

Minato opened his mouth, frowned, turned towards Naruto.

That’s when he saw Obito.

A kunai was at his throat before the beat of thunder ricocheted off of the village around them.

Minato glared at him, eyes peeled and colored like dull concrete.

"What are you doing in my village," he bit out, and a spark of rage in Minato's eyes burst into life.

Naruto sighed, ran his hand through his soaked hair, and stepped forward. He reached out and gently wrapped his fingertips around the blade of the kunai. "Dad."

Minato growled, otherwise unmoving. "What do you have to do with this?"

Naruto began to pull the blade away, the thin rivers of blood cut from his palm washing away in the rain. He didn't blink an eye.

"Do you trust me?"

Minato furrowed his brow and turned, glowering at him. "Not particularly. Not yet." He paused. “I never know with you.”

"I need you to start," Naruto said. Their hands began to shake as the battle for dominance grew: Minato trying to pull the knife out from Naruto's fist, but his son was not having any of it.

"Naruto, stop," Minato said, sighing when he saw the rivers of blood run deeper, dripping down his arm.

"He's not your enemy," Naruto said, motioning towards Obito with a tilt of his forehead. "Please. You need to trust me on this."

Obito watched from the side, motionless.

"Why?" Minato bit out, suddenly finding it harder and harder to pry at the blade. "Who is he to you?"

"To me?" Naruto frowned. "Well, he's the savior of the world. One of them, at least. He saved my life, and for that I respect him."

Minato let the kunai go slack in his hand, and left it sitting there as if embedded in stone. "He what?"

He turned, looked at Obito with a disbelieving frown, looked back at Naruto. "Him?"

"Him," Naruto repeated with a small smile.

"Who is 'him'?"

"This is Tobi. He's the leader of the Akatsuki." Naruto sighed, closing his eyes. "And in early October, he releases the Nine-Tails from Mom and indirectly kills both of you in the process."

Minato pulled another kunai from his pouch and forced it up against the thin flesh of Obito's throat.

"Then tell me," he hissed, "why I shouldn't end his life now and save us all the trouble?"

"Because that was _my_ future. Not this one. In this one, Tobi won't do it. He has no reason to. Isn't that right?"

The boy shook underneath Minato's kunai, but said nothing.

"Please, Minato," Naruto said, and the Hokage jumped at the use of his proper name. "Let him go, and I'll explain."

"Enough of this!" Obito said, voice raw and furious. He shot his hand up to his face, a bolt of lightning streaked across the sky, and Minato reacted on instinct.

The kunai sliced through his neck, running across flesh and bone and blood...

...and came out the other side, unblemished and unstained.

Minato blinked, surprised. Obito's hand continued to move.

"You actually were going to kill me," he said with a bitter edge. Minato’s hand shot back. "And I thought you didn't have the nerve anymore."

Minato froze, turned, locked surprised eyes on the black and orange mask before him. "What?"

Obito lifted his hand, grabbed at his mask, and plucked it off his face.

"Wait, Tobi--" Naruto said, reaching out in shock, eyes wide.

"It's only been a _year_ , Sensei," Obito bit out, just as his Sharingan red met with Minato's blue and the man's heart stopped. "It's been a year, and you've already gone soft."

"Obito?" Minato breathed, voice hidden by the rain.

"What has being Hokage done to you?" Obito said with a scowl. "What happened to the man that could lay waste to an army of men in a matter of seconds?"

Silence - a lull in the rain.

Minato reached out, tears brimming his eyes. "Obito..."

He shot forward, arms outstretched, and enveloped the boy in a hug.

The Fourth got an armful of air. It was Obito's turn to react on instinct.

"What?" Minato whispered, as he pulled himself out of the space his student glowered at him from. "What happened to you, Obito?"

"I grew up, _Sensei_ ," Obito said, more annoyed now than angry. "I realized what was wrong with the world." He frowned at how close they were, and took a hesitant step backwards.

“Where have you been this whole time?” Minato said. The wind whistled through the trees, and a brief break in the clouds let the quiet light of the moon to dance across the gravestones. “Why… why didn’t you come home?”

Obito was silent, but Naruto could tell by the way the boy’s lone eye darted back and forth, back and forth from one blond to the other that something was eating at him from the inside.

“You really are his son,” he muttered to himself, his voice faraway. “I can see it. In your eyes.”

The moon dipped beneath the clouds again, and a burst of wind brought with it the return of the rain.

A sudden thought seemed to cross through Minato's mind, and he squinted his eyes. "So that was you we ran into when we were in the Hidden Mist," he said. "What were you doing there in the first place?"

"He was running it," Naruto said, letting the kunai in his hands drop to the floor, blood and all.

Minato frowned. "You were Mizukage?" He shook his head in obvious confusion. "But... why?"

"Because the Mist is the reason Rin died," Obito muttered, his face a mask of pure stubbornness rather than hardened wood. "They were a cancer on the shinobi world, and deserved to be punished."

Silence. The low hiss of rain began to grow, water droplets cascading from the sky like small bombs. They were all soaked to the bone - but none of them moved an inch. It was like a standoff: a duel of ideologies.

Minato furrowed his eyebrows in discontent. "Who are you, _really_?"

Obito blinked once, twice. "I don't understand."

"No, I mean it," Minato continued, taking his kunai and twisting it between his index and middle fingers. He turned and began to pace, taking shallow steps between the aisles of graves. "Who are you? Because you're not Obito. You're not _my_ Obito."

"You're right," Obito said, crossing his arms. " _Your_ Obito died the same day Rin did - the day Kakashi shoved his fist through her heart and ended her life."

"That's not what happened," Naruto said, shaking his head.

Minato ignored him. "You knew it was a sensitive subject. You knew Kakashi would never do something like that unless he had to--"

"Which is why I didn't come back," Obito said. "The Leaf Village doesn't matter to me anymore."

Naruto smirked. "Then why are you here?"

Obito froze.

"Ah," Naruto said with a knowing smile. "I figured as much. Your plans have fallen through, haven't they?"

Minato turned, and looked at him. "What do you mean?"

"If I remember correctly, then this is around the time of the formation of the Akatsuki. The _proper_ Akatsuki."

"That missing-nin group you mentioned? So soon?"

"No," Naruto said, shaking his head. "Akatsuki was far more than that when it first began. It started in the Hidden Rain. The old pervert's first students were its founding members, actually."

"Jiraiya-sensei?" Minato asked. "You mean... the group of kids he helped during the second war?" His eyes widened. "The one with the Rinnegan boy in it?"

"His name was Nagato," Naruto said, sighing. "Yes. In my time, at around the time of the Nine-Tails attack, the Akatsuki tried to overthrow Hanzou and the rest of the Hidden Rain's government."

Obito's eye widened. "How could you have possibly..."

"It didn't work, though, and Yahiko, their leader, died. The Akatsuki was pretty much finished at that point." Naruto pointed at the Uchiha. "But Obito went in and was able to twist some strings. After Yahiko died, the new Akatsuki began."

He sighed, ran his hand through his hair and shook out the water that was dripping through it. "I always wondered when it was supposed to take place."

Minato frowned, turned back and forth from student to son. He noted the way Obito was tense and coiled like cornered viper, but refused to do anything but stand before them and simmer in the rain, unmoving. He noted the way Naruto seemed to roll his shoulders forward, and the way he pursed his lips in thought - just like how Kushina battled her inner thoughts.

A crackle of lightning lit up the sky, and Minato frowned.

"Why don't we take this elsewhere?" he said, raising an arm and noting how his clothes were soaked through and clinging to his skin. "I'd rather we get out of the rain."

He turned, and offered a small, kind smile to the student he thought was long since dead. "Obito... your past is your business. We've all made mistakes. But..." he bit his tongue as he chose his next words carefully. "But your present and your future don't have to be like this."

He saw Obito furrow his brow and open his mouth to retort, and raised a gentle hand to stop him. "I know I don't know anything about your life these past few months. I don't know what you've been through, and I don't know why it is you find the need to do the things you do." He let the smile drop, and turned to look down at the ground in contemplation. He watched the way raindrops melted into the puddles that lay uneven and splotchy at their feet, and shook his head. "But I can emphasize, Obito. You know that. I've had my fair share of challenges in life, and you'd be surprised at how many things I've lost."

He turned again, looked up and met Obito in the eye. "That includes you. And Rin. And Kakashi, to some extent."

Minato shifted on his feet, stepped in a puddle but paid it no mind. Naruto stood at his side, the smile on his face minute but _proud_ in a sense, and he felt a strange sense of validation at the unspoken praise.

But Obito was his main concern. "You know I've always considered you to be like a younger sibling. You're not a child, Obito. You're a shinobi. You deserve to be treated like one."

He reached out with a waterlogged hand. "Please. Come home with me. I want to hear your story."

* * *

"Why are you laughing?" Minato asked, as they walked home in the rain, Obito in tow.

Naruto smirked, and shook his head. "You know, for the longest time, I've always wondered where I got my negotiating skills from. I always thought it was Mom, because she seems the type, but... I guess it was you all along."

Minato smiled, and the small bud of pride blossoming in his stomach began to bloom. "Oh, really? And why's that funny?"

Naruto snorted. "Because I had almost the exact same conversation with Obito barely a moment before you had even showed up."

* * *

Three had never ridden in a flying machine before.

Transportation was a luxury in the Hidden Sea. The island, while impressive in size, did not have much of a footprint – something she discovered for herself as a child, but had confirmed by the Leaf when they surveyed the lands from the sky and printed vast, detailed maps.

Which was why Three had pressed herself up against the cold glass of the zeppelin’s window as close as she could manage, her eyes scanning the flickering ocean rushing beneath them with wide eyes and a dropped jaw.

She didn’t realize that such things even existed, were even possible. When she had travelled to the Leaf the first time, they had taken a hastily-assembled pontoon boat and braved the waves as best they could.

But this?

It was _amazing_.

“Enjoying yourself?”

It was the pink-haired woman – the doctor.

Three remained glued to the glass, but rolled her forehead against it in an affirmative gesture.

The sea shifted color, twisting and turning from a shade of blue to a dark green, the waves dancing about like a forest of trees. Lights flickered across the horizon, and splotchy currents of something bizarre and hypnotic drifted in front of her eyes.

Then she blinked, and it all went away.

“Three?”

The girl frowned, stared at her reflection looking back at her through the glass.

A heartbeat of silence passed, before Three realized the woman was still there, and turned around.

“I…” she cleared her throat. “Yes.”

“Glad to hear it,” the woman – Sakura, she remembered – smiled, sitting up just a tiny bit straighter, and smoothing out the blemishes in her clothes.

Three took a look around the tiny yet cozy seating area they found themselves in. Two rows of wooden chairs, each facing the other, sat in the middle of the room, and Sakura was sitting in the one furthest from her, fumbling with a small bright rectangle every few moments as if nervous about something.

Sakura followed her gaze and smiled when she realized what Three was looking at. "Oh, this? This is a telephone. It lets me keep track of the two we left behind back in the Leaf. My nurses are sending me updates..."

She paused, shook her head, and her smile grew wider. "You know what? That doesn't matter right now. What matters right now is that you tell me a little bit more about yourself. How about it?"

Three bit her lip. "More?"

"Sure, why not?" Sakura said, waving her over to one of the seats. "Tell me about the Hidden Sea. Have any friends? Siblings?" She waggled her eyebrows. "Love interests?"

"I... had a brother," Three said, as she lowered herself into a chair like a newly-christened boat kissing the water for the first time. "And a few friends."

"Well that's good," Sakura said, crossing her arms across her chest and her legs at her ankles, stretching out.

Three smiled, her eyes watching the way Sakura's foot absentmindedly tapped out a rhythm in the air. "We would go into the forests the day the fishermen returned from the deep ocean, and sit in the trees. They always had lanterns on their boats, and when they began to appear..."

"I bet that looked beautiful," Sakura smiled, and her eyes glazed over in thought as well. "I can remember the festivals from when we were kids. They would sell these little lanterns..." She gesticulated in the air the general shape of the object. "...about so big and so wide, and we would light the little candle that sat inside and gently toss them into the air."

Three blinked. "They would fly?"

Sakura nodded. "Yup! The heat from the candles would let them float, and they'd drift through the air." She pointed up at the ceiling. "That's how this zeppelin is floating right now, as a matter of fact."

Three looked up at the roof with a renewed sense of awe. Somehow, understanding how it worked made it all the more mysterious to her.

"Anyways," Sakura continued, fidgeting with the hem of her dress, "it would be beautiful. It looked like the stars were falling. And everything was always so quiet."

She sighed. "Not like today. Now, there's nothing but noise and lights and people always on your case about _something_ or another." She flipped her phone out of her pocket as if to prove a point, and began to scan through her messages with a frown on her face. "You're never free."

"The Hidden Sea isn't like that at all," Three said, her voice quiet and respectful, her eyes still not meeting Sakura's. "It's... quiet, and peaceful, and everyone has a place. We all live together, and have our jobs, and it's so calming."

"You all live together?" Sakura said, frowning in surprise. "Like, in the same house?"

Three blinked, then let out a quiet laugh when she realized what Sakura was asking. "Oh, no! I mean that we all live in one corner of the island - in a little community. Our village is small, but we are more than happy."

"Why only one corner?"

Three furrowed her eyebrows. "Because the forests are not ours. They are One's."

Sakura's expression steeled, and she leaned forward ever so slightly - perhaps without even noticing she had done so. "'One' owns the forest?"

"Well... not really," Three said, "but the jungle grows so quickly because of him, that we don't bother. The paths we cut through the trees cover themselves up again after only a few days."

"A few days? Interesting," Sakura said - mostly to herself - and leaned back. "Well, the Hidden Sea certainly is... different."

Three smiled despite herself. "Your Leaf village is different as well."

"Well, I can't wait to see it," Sakura said, winking. "It sounds beautiful."

The door to the rear of the ship opened up, and the other two members of their party stepped out.

"How did it go?" Sakura greeted them.

"Rather well," the Sixth Hokage said, a smile on his face.

"Until the clones dispelled," the bearded man muttered from behind him, his hands shoved into his pockets.

Kakashi looked at Sakura, and winked at her

"Oh no," she sighed, shaking her head. "What did you do?"

"Nothing at all, why do you ask?" Kakashi said.

The bearded one - Shikamaru, Three recalled - grumbled something under his breath, then threw himself into the chair opposite her. "Well, whatever. It's done now. The media's been taken care of."

"And the Kage summit?" Sakura asked.

"Taken care of," Kakashi said, threading his hands into the sleeves of his cloak and lowering himself down a chair away from Three. "They know what's happening, and that we may be gone for a while while we try and sort this out diplomatically."

Once again, Three felt a knot of guilt twist in her gut. She kneaded at the fabric of her pants, watching the way the three Leaf shinobi spoke.

It was momentary, but Three saw Sakura steal a glance at her out of the corner of her eye. She tensed, expecting the woman to ask her what was wrong, but Sakura simply turned back to Kakashi and continued to discuss the events of the meeting they had held in the other room.

"Shikamaru seems to be convinced that the Village is going to riot at the news Tsunade is in charge," Kakashi said. "But I'm not so sure."

"Well, you could have been more subtle with the way you announced it," Shikamaru said, pulling a bent cigarette from his flak jacket pocket and shoving it into his mouth.

Kakashi gave him a sickeningly sweet smile. "You know, I don't think I've seen you relax a single moment since the day Naruto took the hat."

"You don't say?" Shikamaru said, responding with a fake smile of his own. He slouched back in his chair, threw his arms behind his head, and stared at the ceiling. "It's Naruto. The village would have collapsed the moment he sat at that desk if there wasn't someone there to do the busywork."

Sakura snorted. "Oh, please. We all know you steal naps in the copy room when you think nobody's around."

Shikamaru went still as stone.

Three laughed, bringing her sleeved hand up to her mouth.

Sakura smirked. "Oh, and the fact you stash the lunches Temari makes for you in the dumpster out behind the building every morning and order takeout from that place downtown--"

Quick as lightning, Shikamaru leapt up and covered Sakura's mouth with his hand. "Okay, we get it."

Kakashi shrugged. "What? I wanted Sakura to get to the part about how you use Shadow Clones to do _your_ paperwork, but scold Naruto when he uses clones for _his_."

Shikamaru narrowed his eyes. “Don’t think I don’t know what you’re doing.”

Kakashi blinked like a doe. “Whatever do you mean?”

The Nara rolled his eyes and harrumphed, leaning himself up and onto his feet. He walked to the door towards the rear of the ship, propped it open, and pulled a lighter from his pocket.

“This zeppelin isn’t filled with hydrogen, right?”

“Nope,” Sakura said, pulling out her phone and smiling. “But that doesn’t matter. You’re not supposed to smoke in here.”

“Too late,” Shikamaru said, as he lit the cigarette and disappeared behind the door.

“If we blow up, I’m beating you up in hell!” Sakura called out after him.

Three laughed harder, and slumped down into her chair.

Sakura watched her from the corner of her eye and gave a pleased nod.

“So, how far out are we?” Kakashi said. He pulled a phone of his own out of the rolls of his robes.

Sakura deadpanned when she saw the way the man . “Do I even want to know?”

“What?” Kakashi said, waving the device a little in front of him. “I’m just reading mission reports. Gotta keep up to date on the goings-on of our future generations of shinobi, of course.”

“Yeah, _of course_.”

Three turned, and looked back out the window, smiling as the two bickered. She watched the way the currents of the ocean drifted past them, a brilliant blue, and blinked.

“We are close,” Three said, eyes tracing the horizon. She found a speck of emerald green, and smiled. “Yes. We are very close indeed.”

* * *

“Minato, if you keep bringing strangers home, we’re going to run out of places to put them.”

The Fourth blinked from the doorway, turned his head towards the end of the hall. He found Kushina leaning there, arms crossed and brow furrowed. “Uhh… hi. How did you know?”

“I could see from the window upstairs,” Kushina shrugged. “The lightning was pretty – sue me.”

Naruto stepped forward into the doorway behind Minato, shaking out his soaked cloak and leaning it over the rack next to the door.

“Here,” Kushina said, throwing a bundled up ball of fabric at them. Minato caught it, and shot Kushina a quizzical look.

“They’re towels,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Dry off a bit. Don’t want you leaving puddles in my house.”

She made her way through the hallway and stepped into the kitchen, the harsh florescent light from the fixture in the other room casting bright, crisp shadows in the darkness of the hall. “I’ll put a kettle on.”

Naruto turned to Minato, and the man shrugged. “Alright, thank you. We’ll be up in my office.”

“Don’t make too much noise!” Kushina all but yelled. “Boruto’s asleep.”

Minato raised an eyebrow. Naruto snickered.

They heard the door close gently behind them, and watched as Obito made his way inside, looking alltogether uncomfortable.

"Come on in," Minato smiled, turning and gesturing forward. "Let's get upstairs." He met Naruto's gaze. "I think I figured out our problem."

* * *

"Hiashi?" Naruto breathed, leaning forward. "You mean..."

"He was the missing link," Minato said, leaning back in his chair and folding his hands together underneath his chin. "His death proves it."

"I don't understand," Obito said. He shifted in his seat and winced. "Why does he matter?"

"Well, honestly, it could have been anyone," Minato said. "But what's special about Hiashi in particular is the fact that he's _your_ father in law." He turned, and pointed at Naruto.

The jinchuuriki blinked. "Really?"

"Yes," Minato said. "He was planning on getting married in the coming months, once clan politics had been sorted out. He and his fiancee had been planning the wedding for months."

"What are you saying, exactly?" Naruto asked.

"He's from the Hyuuga family," Minato said. "Traditionally, they do not..." he coughed, "... _consummate_ out of wedlock."

Naruto blinked. "Wait, are you saying what I think you're saying?"

"You married his daughter," Minato said. "But now, his daughter will never exist." He narrowed his eyes, and leaned forward himself. "And yet your son still exists."

"The paradox you were talking about," Naruto said, eyes wide. "Is... is Boruto in trouble?"

"So long as he keeps eating Kushina's cooking without much of a fuss, I'd say so," Minato smiled. "Relax. It never would have been possible for Hiashi to die in the first place if my theory was wrong. But now we know for sure that it isn't."

Obito frowned. "So this means what, exactly?"

"I can keep working on my jutsu prototype," the Fourth said, shrugging. "I'm almost there anyway. Now I know my work this past week hasn't been in vain, and I can keep making progress without worrying that it'll be useless."

"No," Obito said, narrowing his eyes. "What does this mean for _me_?"

"We need you, Obito," Naruto said, turning to look at his father's student dead-on. "Your Sharingan has an ability that may be the key to all of this."

Obito blinked, and reached up with a hand to his lone eye.

Something crunched in his shoulder.

He bit back a snarl of pain.

Minato jumped in his chair, and was at his side in a flash.

He touched Obito's cloak, and the boy shivered under his touch.

"This is still soaking wet," Minato muttered, and furrowed his brow. He turned and looked up into the boy's eye. "Obito, why haven't you taken this off?"

"Because he can't," Naruto said.

Minato looked up. "What do you mean?"

Naruto's face was a soupy mess of emotion. His mouth was slightly open in shock, and his eyebrows were pursed across his forehead.

He leaned out of his chair, and carefully began to pull away at the fabric on Obito's left side with his fingers.

The boy hissed.

"I injured him," Naruto said, frowning, shaking his head. "Back in the Hidden Mist." He leaned down onto one knee and looked Obito in the eye. "Why haven't you gotten this looked at yet?"

"Because I don't _have_ anyone," Obito said, teeth clenched. "Not anymore. Not after what you've done."

"Well, you have people now," Minato said, standing up straight. "I'll go get the first aid kit. Wait here."

He didn't bother to use the door.

Naruto stared at the floor for a few moments, a frown stretched across his face. He sighed, then sank back into his chair opposite Obito's.

The two remained silent for a brief heartbeat - only the subtle rustling of paper from the room's draft was audible. A far off rumble of thunder from the retreating storm drifted through the night sky, and Naruto took a deep breath.

"He cares about you, you know."

Obito blinked, but remained otherwise motionless.

"I mean it," Naruto continued, leaning back in his chair until his neck rested on the low-sitting cushion where his back should have been. "He does this because he loves you. Not because he's planning anything." He paused. "Nor because he doesn't mean it. He does."

Obito frowned, but remained silent.

Several more moments passed before he stretched his neck and turned toward Naruto. "How did you know?"

"What, that you were thinking about that?" Naruto smiled. "Well... I have a friend. Let's just say he's also an Uchiha and leave it at that." He shook his head. "I know what he tends to worry about - and it's always the dumb stuff. So don't worry about the dumb stuff, or try and overthink things." He shrugged - the motion coming off as an awkward shuffle across the fabric of the chair. "Besides, when has your sensei ever lied to you?"

"Quite a bit," Obito mumbled.

"Well, okay, but when have you not been able to tell he was lying to you in the first place?"

Obito was silent.

The door smashed open.

"What do you mean 'our guest is injured'?" Kushina growled, storming through the open entryway with a white box under her arm and a spark in her eyes that just _begged_ someone to challenge her. "Why didn't you say anything?"

"Because I didn't realize it at the time!" Minato said, hot on her heels, trying to pry the box out from under her arm. "Please, Kushina, he's my responsibility, let me--"

"Hush," she said, elbowing him in the ribs. She waggled the kit under her arm and frowned at him. "Do you really think I'd trust you with this thing after what you did you Chouza when _he_ was hurt?"

"That was _seven years ago_ , Kushina. Besides, I really don't think--"

"Relax," she grouched, and spun on her heel towards Minato's desk. "I'll handle it."

She turned towards Obito, blinked once, then twice as realization settled in, and froze.

The box dropped from her grasp and flew open at her feet with an explosive crash.

* * *

It wasn’t until the next morning, after Kushina had recovered from the shock of seeing Obito in her house (and after Minato had recovered from her subsequent overjoyed rampage) that Naruto felt like they actually had a chance of getting home.

He sat in the kitchen, leaning against the countertop and peering out the window above the sink to watch the sun rise. A pot of coffee sat half-empty next to him, and he was bringing his mug up to his lips for another sip when he heard a quiet rap against the hallway entrance.

“Hey,” Kushina said, a gentle smile on her face, a soft, sherbet-orange robe wrapped tight beneath her crossed arms. She was leaning against the wall, watching him.

“Hey,” Naruto said with a small wave, returning her grin with one of his own. “Nice robe. I like the color.”

“Heh,” she snorted, pushing off with her hips and strolling into the room. “You like orange, eh? It’s a good color.” She gave him a goofy smirk. “Nothing beats red, though.”

Naruto chuckled, and moved out of her way with practiced grace as she yawned, reaching for the coffee pot.

“Could smell it from all the way upstairs,” she muttered, smacking her lips. She opened the cabinet above her head, reached around blindly with a hand until she found a mug that suited her fancy, and began to pour something out for herself. “Never fails to drag my lazy ass out of bed.”

Naruto shrugged. “Can’t say that’s ever happened to me. I’m not a morning person at _all_ , period.”

Kushina laughed, swirled in a few scoops of sugar with a spoon she nonchalantly tossed back in with the other silverware, and slumped down into one of the seats at the table.

“Busy day today, eh?” she said.

“Yeah,” Naruto said. “Lots to do. We leave for the Hidden Sea today.” He paused, frowned, rolled his eyes. "At least, if the old pervert actually does what he's supposed to."

Kushina smirked. She gripped her mug between her hands and blew inside, sending a soft cloud of steam every which way. "You know, despite being from Whirlpool, we never heard of the Hidden Sea village. And I wonder why that is."

Naruto frowned in confusion, taking another sip. "No idea."

“What's their village like? Must be strange, going to a place so disconnected from the rest of the world.”

“I have no idea. I’ve never been – only heard stories about it from the diplomats that were sent with the chuunin exam participants.”

Kushina frowned, pulling on her inner lip with her teeth as she swirled a swig of coffee around in her mouth. “Well,” she said, once her mouth was empty, “that’s a bit worrying.”

Naruto looked at her. “You think so?”

She raised an eyebrow. “You’re teleporting into a completely unknown place that you’ve only ever heard of, in a world that you’ve been in for a grand total of…” She pretended to check her nonexistent watch. “Oh, I don’t know, twenty minutes? Give or take, of course.”

Naruto laughed. “Well, I can safely say that I’ve done far stupider things and come out fine on the other end.”

“Oh _really_ ,” Kushina said, narrowing her eyes at him. “And just what was it, exactly, that my son was getting into?”

He smiled, moved toward the table and sat down at the seat next to her. “Well, let’s see! There was the time I went charging after a group of genetically modified missing nin in order to save a friend, then had said friend run me through with a fist full of lightning.” He frowned, turning introspective. “There’s the time I went berserk on Orochimaru and destroyed half a forest when Kurama decided he wanted to come out and play, then there’s the time I went on a three year training trip with _Jiraiya_ of all people…” He beamed at her. “There’s quite the list.”

Kushina laughed despite herself, shaking her head. “If it was me that was your mother, I would have probably pummeled you into the ground.” She raised her glass at him. "And that's just for going out on your own with Jiraiya."

Naruto smiled but went quiet, and they both sat in relative silence as the sun began to cast bright yellow light throughout the room.

“You know,” he said after a long moment, cupping his coffee in his hand, “I’ve been trying to figure out just what, exactly, I am to you two. If I’m actually your son, or if I just kinda fell through the sky into a world where I’m not exactly necessary.” He frowned, rubbed a thumb over the warm porcelain. “After all, you’re going to have your own little Naruto to deal with here pretty soon.”

Kushina smiled, and subconsciously ran a hand down her belly.

“But I think I’ve come to terms with the fact that you _are_ my parents,” Naruto said. “You’re my mother. You may not have raised me, and we may not have spoken for more than fifteen minutes at most in _my_ time, but…”

“Stop,” Kushina said, her voice quiet and soft. “You don’t have to say anything.”

Naruto looked up at her.

“I couldn’t place it,” she continued, her face a stoic mask. “When I first saw you, way back when you fixed my little… fox problem, I felt something. Like I knew you.” She met his eyes and smiled. “And I mean _really_ knew you. Like you were me, in a sense. Just tall, and blond…”

“And older than you?” Naruto said with a lopsided grin.

“Pshh, you’re not _that_ old,” Kushina said, waving him off with a bat of her hand. “Besides, it wasn’t just looks. You hold yourself in a way that’s…” She paused, struggling to find the words. “Like me. Like _Minato_.”

“He said the same thing,” Naruto mumbled, a strange feeling – not at all foreign, but still just as abstract – careening in his stomach.

“Of course he did,” Kushina said, proud. “He’s my husband. He should know things like that – I wouldn’t have married him if he was dumb.”

Naruto laughed.

“But anyways,” Kushina said, “if you’re worried about whether or not you’re unwelcome with us… don’t be.” Her grin grew sincere, and she reached forward and gripped his wrist with a gentle tug. “You’re family, Naruto. Just because you’re not my Naruto doesn’t mean you’re not my Naruto.”

She blinked, frowning. “If that made any sense.”

Naruto was quiet, just watching her. He smiled, relaxed into his seat further, and let out a quiet sigh. “Thanks, Mom.”

Kushina paused at the honorific, surprised. But her face melted into a pool of emotion the next moment, and she beamed at him like he was the most precious thing on Earth. “Of course.”

A clock chimed in the living room, and Naruto stretched up in his chair to look past his mother towards where it came from. “Damn. Already seven.”

“This is why I hate mornings, y’know,” Kushina grumbled, taking her glass and downing it in one massive gulp. “You blink, and you miss it.”

Naruto rose from his seat, gathering up their glasses as he did so. “Are you kidding? Mornings are _slow_.”

“Guess we’ll just have to agree to disagree,” she said, leaning an elbow against the tabletop as she watched him empty his half-drank mug into the sink. He ran them under the tap for a moment, then rubbed a clean rag across them to dry them off.

“I don’t know if it’s my place to say or not,” Kushina said suddenly, as he was turning back around, “but Boruto looks up to you.”

Naruto froze, and knitted his eyebrows together. “Uh oh. What did he do this time.”

“I never said he _did_ anything,” Kushina shrugged, crossing her arms, “but I do think it might be a good idea if you went and talked to him. He seemed…” she swiveled her head back and forth like a bobblehead, “…frustrated yesterday. Especially during dinner.”

“Yeah,” Naruto sighed, draping his arm over the back of his chair. “I don’t know. Maybe it’s just because he’s a teenager, or what… but he’s awfully moody sometimes.”

He smiled at her. “But thanks. I’ll see what’s on his mind. Poor kid’s had a rough few days.”

She watched him push himself off the back of the chair, and make his way out of the kitchen and back upstairs. She frowned, worried.

“Haven’t we all.”

* * *

 Boruto knew it was coming.

The moment he stood from the table just after his father left for his walk. The moment he began to storm his way upstairs. The moment he glanced back around to see his grandmother give him _that_ look, and the moment he turned away to avoid it.

He'd seen it before far too often.

He sat up in his bed, watching the shadows dance underneath his door, and waited.

The thunderstorm outside grew fierce, shaking the village like a castle under siege. Lightning flickered through partially-drawn curtains, and all it served to do was give Boruto an unpleasant reminder that he was alone.

He curled his legs up towards his chest and cradled them in his arms, using his knees to rest his head and watch the rain leave streaks down the glass of the window.

Even the rain was real.

That was the heart of things, wasn't it? Boruto didn't feel like this world was real. Everything - and he meant _everything_ felt out of place, out of _sync_... but then something as simple as an ordinary rainstorm would roll through and he would spend several agonizing moments in blissful ignorance forgetting just where he was.

Forgetting who he was with.

He didn't realize he had fallen asleep until he felt fingers on his forehead, brushing his hair out of his face.

Boruto leapt out of bed with his heart racing like a steam engine, and for a moment, his eyes darted around the room looking for his missing teammates.

"Whoa, whoa!"

Oh.

Right.

He wasn't _with_ his teammates.

"I'm sorry... I didn't mean to freak you out like that, y'know."

At least his teammates didn't _coddle_ him.

Boruto narrowed his eyes. "You're finally back?"

Naruto blinked, raised an eyebrow. "Finally? I was gone for barely an hour last night." He looked up at the clock on the wall. “It’s morning already.”

"Hmph," Boruto said, and he rolled himself all the way out of bed, casting aside the knot of sheets his hasty awakening had summoned up. He began to roll up his clothes into a small pile, refusing to look at his father. "When are we leaving?"

Naruto blinked again. He lowered himself down onto the edge of the mattress, and ran his hand down his pants to clear it of imaginary lint.

“Boruto.”

The boy stopped packing his things, but kept his focus downwards.

“I know you’re probably mad at me.” A pause. “But… I don’t know why.”

Boruto snorted.

“I really wish you would just tell me,” Naruto said, sighing. He sounded tired – like this was an afterthought for him. A _necessity_.

“Do you actually care?” Boruto said. “Or are you doing all of this because you feel like you should?”

Naruto turned, eyes a tad wider, and looked at him. “Boruto…”

“You always do this. If it’s not…” the boy frowned, “… _Grandma_ , then it’s Mom. Someone’s always gotta tell you to be a dad.”

“Now that’s not true, and you know it.”

“But it is!” Boruto threw a balled up shirt on the ground and stood, glowering at his father. “Even since we’ve gotten here, you’ve just been acting like a Hokage. Like a _ninja_. But even then...” He frowned. “It’s… it’s like you’re doing the worst at both. You’re being a bad dad, and a bad shinobi.”

Naruto narrowed his eyes. “Okay, I think you’ve said enough—“

“And now what?” Boruto said. “We’re just gonna go off and try and go home? Are we even _going_ home?”

“Of course we’re going home.”

“It sure doesn’t look like it.” He crossed his arms. “Ever since we’ve gotten here, it’s like you’ve been happier than you’ve ever been. Like you’d rather stay here than go back to _our_ family.”

Naruto stood, his hand a fist at his side. “Don’t you _dare_ talk to me like that.”

“Or what?” Boruto said, leaning forward, a challenging spark in his eye. “You’ll make my life miserable?” He scoffed. “It’s too late, because I already _am_.”

“ENOUGH!”

Boruto stopped talking, but stood his ground.

“You know, I’m _sorry_ you’re miserable. I’m _sorry_ you hate it here, and I’m _sorry_ you think I don’t want to leave.” Naruto narrowed his eyes, and jutted a finger into his son’s chest. “But don’t even for a _second_ think that I’d abandon you and your sister and your mother for a world that _isn’t ours_.”

“Then why are you so _happy?_ ” Boruto breathed, his voice constricting under the scrutinous stare of his enraged father.

The frown on Naruto’s face evaporated like a puddle on a sunny day. “Because,” he said simply, “you’re here with me.”

Boruto’s beating heart shifted.

What?

“ _What?_ ” he whispered, eyebrow raised.

“I said,” Naruto began again, running his hand up from Boruto’s chest to his shoulder, “that the only reason I’m so happy is because I’ve got _you_.”

“I don’t… I don’t understand.”

“I’ve almost lost you more times this week than I ever want to think about ever again,” Naruto said, a weak smile on his face. “You’ve been in too much danger.” He cupped Boruto’s cheek in his hand. “You’re my only son. If I lost you, I’d never forgive myself.”

Boruto grit his teeth. “You’re doing it again.”

Naruto frowned. “Doing what?”

“Being all…” he shook his head out of his father’s embrace, “ _preachy!”_

“Boruto, you know that’s not my intention.” Naruto rose to his full height again and ran a hand through his hair.

“Why do you think I’m so weak?”

Naruto froze. “What?”

Boruto was turned around, now – staring at the unpacked mound of clothes behind them. “You think I’m weak. You don’t have to say it, I already know it’s true.” He shook his head. “You just said it without realizing it. Saying I can’t defend myself. Saying I need _protecting_.”

Naruto shook his head, despite the fact Boruto couldn’t see him. “That’s not true. You’re my son. I would never say you’re weak.”

“And then there’s that!” Boruto spun back around again. His eyes were red. “I heard you talking to Jiraiya earlier. He called me weak, and you didn’t say anything.”

“You were in the garden?”

Boruto grimaced. “Just… just because I’m the stupid Hokage’s son doesn’t mean I should be anything. I don’t _want_ to be something just because my last name is Uzumaki. I want…”

He bit his bottom lip, enraged at himself for being unable to just spit it out.

“You want to be your own shinobi.”

Boruto blinked, his vision blending into a kaleidoscope of light and color and images. He looked up at the disjointed figure of his father, blinked again, then wiped at his eyes until he could see.

“You know,” Naruto said, “I really wish you would have just said that the first time, y’know.” He sank backwards, falling onto the foot of the bed with a creak. “Being the son of the Hokage isn’t easy.” He looked over at his son, and the smile he gave nearly made Boruto’s heart burst from guilt. “I know that because I’m the same way.”

Realization struck. Boruto stood and watched his father play at the edges of the bed’s mattress between his fingers, and remained silent.

“I always grew up trying to be a part of something. Be a ninja, be in a family… be Hokage. Always. That was _always_ my dream.”

He shook his head, and bit his tongue in thought. “I never… had the experiences you’re having. I never had to worry about having a dad that worked more than he should, because I didn’t have a  father at all.”

“Dad…”

“But just because you’re not as powerful as I am _physically_ doesn’t mean you’re not going to be some day.” He smiled when Boruto made his way over and sat next to him, a careful few inches away but close enough to show he cared. “You’re still just a genin, after all. You’ve got a ways to go. Besides,” he shifted on the bed, “there are other ways to be powerful. Other, _better_ ways.”

“Better ways?”

“Well, there’s being a good person,” Naruto said, tilting his head, staring at the wall in front of them. “And learning how to talk rather than fight.”

He turned and looked down at Boruto, draped his arm over the boy’s shoulder and pulled him in. “So please, don’t tell me you’re weak. Because you’re not.”

“But I haven’t done anything but get in the way since we got here.”

“Well…” Naruto shrugged. “I will admit I’ve been sheltering you a bit. But that’s because I was scared.”

“Scared?” Boruto turned and gave him a look of doubt.

“Still am, honestly,” Naruto smiled. “I have no idea what’s going to happen next.” He ran his hand through Boruto’s hair and shook it out of place. “You’ve surprised me with how brave you’ve been.”

Boruto ducked from underneath his father’s hand, fighting a smile. “Dad… I’m thirteen.”

There was a loud crash downstairs, and both blonds turned towards it once they heard Kushina’s angry voice chewing out an overly excited Jiraiya.

“Sounds like the toad scout came back,” Naruto pushed himself to his feet, and took a step towards the door. “We’re not out of the woods yet,” he said. “We’ve still got a lot of work to do.” He winked at Boruto. “And who knows, maybe you’ll get the chance to save the day by the time we get home.”

They made their way out of the room toward the commotion downstairs, confident in the future.

Little did Boruto know just how right his father would be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know Boruto is being an ass. But he's just a kid, and he's a bit frazzled. Can you really blame him?
> 
> First update in 2017! Hope the New Year is treating everyone well.
> 
> Speaking of new, keep your eyes peeled for a new fic in the next few hours. It should be out by the end of the day. Let's just say that it's a project near and dear to my heart, and it'll probably be what ends up replacing Blonding once Blonding is done and dusted. If you want to read more of what I write, then give it a look-see!
> 
> Thanks for reading - see you soon!  
> -Endo


	18. Chapter 18

Three never went to the village square.

It was far too out of the way, for one; her home was close to the edge of the town, near the tall, arching trees that draped halfway towards the ground and looked like they were bowing to her as she left for her day's duties.

The square was on the other side of the Hidden Sea, surrounded by the ocean and the docks and row after row of densely-packed houses. The square was where they held their festivals, where the villagers sold their goods and interacted with one another, and it was a loud, noisy, crowded place.

Three never felt a need to go there.

Not until _that_ day, at least.

It was strange, the feeling that overcame her that fateful morning. She woke in her bed, the sun drifting through the shade of the branches high overhead and casting bright swaths of light across her room, and the unfamiliar sensation of dread-met-excitement settled over her almost as soon as her feet touched the wool rug on the wooden floor.

Her small, two-room home bottled her up, making her uneasy and restless and all-around far too uncomfortable, and for a brief moment she considered making the unpleasant trek up the mountain pass to see her grandfather.

She squashed that thought as soon as it crossed her mind, and instead slipped her bamboo sandals under her feet and walked out into the village for the first time in a week.

Three scratched at her bald head as she entered the village proper, and tried not to shrink away from the looks of surprise and worry the others gave her. She could see the questions in their eyes.

Perhaps she was sick? Perhaps she was training, or working on her skills as a ninja, or something else entirely? Was _that_ why she hid herself away by the edge of the forest?

Some of the fishermen, large bags of something foul-smelling and heavy slung over their shoulders, gave her rather different looks - looks of disapproval. Was she lazy? Why didn't she bother working in the village, earning an honest living and being one with her kind, like her father had done not so long ago?

Three breathed a deep breath, crossed her arms across her chest, and kept walking.

The town washed past her in a blur, and the faces of surprise bled to faces of indifference.

She let out a sigh of relief, and some of the tension in her shoulders faded away. The square approached her as the hill sloped downwards, toward the massive blue mirror of light that girdled their village. She counted one, _two_ dozen small fishing vessels sailing on waves of reflected sunlight, some drifting out of her range of vision and across the horizon towards the fertile fishing grounds she knew from school laid just outside of the bay.

The village square welcomed her with the same somewhat shocked, somewhat unconcerned looks she had encountered on her journey down the hillside, but she paid them no mind.

The square was just as bustling as always, a blur of motion and activity and _noise_. Three made her way towards the center, where the cobbled concrete gave way to the wooden boardwalk and she could hear the waves of the ocean lapping at the support beams. She stood at their junction, one foot on one surface and the other on another, and waited.

For what, she was unsure.

But she waited nonetheless.

Minutes passed, _hours_ , and Three just stared up into the gemstone-blue sky, watching thin ribbons of clouds blur past their island in the heavy winds. The villagers floated past her, leaving her alone on her island of transfixed lethargy. Some cast her looks of confused concern, but Three was of the family of mystics, and thus was left to her own devices.

As it had always been, and as it would always be.

"Three?"

Three blinked, winced when she realized her eyes were dry and achy, and turned towards the voice of the person she had somehow expected to meet her there.

"Hoshu?" she mumbled, frowning. "Why... are you here?"

"Why are _you_ here?" Hoshu asked, casting aside his hood and wiping away a bead of sweat from his own hairless head. "Good heavens, child, it's hotter than a bonfire out here today." He frowned, pressed his palm into Three's forehead, cursed under his breath. "Now look, you've burnt yourself. How long have you been standing here?"

Three opened her mouth to respond, but looked up into the sky and narrowed her eyes at a glimmer of something bright approaching off the horizon. "I don't..."

Hoshu bit his cheek and looked up at the sky. "What? What is it?"

"I see something," Three muttered, shaking her head. "I... I feel like I'm supposed to wait for it, but..."

"Wait for what?" Hoshu raised a hand to his forehead and squinted, trying to block out the blistering sunlight and, for the most part, failing. "I don't see anything, child. Are you sure you don't have heatstroke? It _is,_ after all, a rather warm day. Please, come into the shade, drink some water, eat something-"

Three tuned him out, watching the shimmering cloud of reds and blacks and blues and _apprehension_ drift through the air.

She blinked, took a step towards it in thinly veiled excitement, and it disappeared.

"What?" she muttered, rubbing at her eyes and straining again. "It was... it was right there..."

"Three!" Hoshu hissed, and he reached out and grabbed her shoulder with a gentle sort of force he only reserved for the rare occasions he felt he needed to actually _do_ something. "Child, you are going to hurt yourself!"

He frowned, thought of something, and began to tug Three off the boardwalk. "You know what? That does it. We are going to go see your grandfather right this minute. You have been acting strangely all month, what with locking yourself in your cabin for weeks on end and only eating those nasty roots from your garden, and it's affecting your judgment. We need spiritual guidance. I can't have the next One be left in such an unruly state-"

"Hoshu!"

The man blinked, froze, immediately let go of her arm. "O-oh dear, I was rambling again, wasn't I?" He ran his hands together underneath his cloaked sleeves in quiet worry. "I... I feel as though I have overstepped my bounds, Lady Third. Please, in the future, do not hesitate-"

"Hoshu, please," Three said, shaking her head and smiling in exasperated amusement. "You are acting quite strangely indeed. What's gotten into you?"

The monk sighed, eyes wide, and walked off towards a quiet alley in between two buildings on the corner of the square. Three followed. "I do apologize. It is just... that the other monks and I have noticed some rather... peculiar incidents as of late."

Three blinked. "With my grandfather?"

Hoshu nodded, his mouth pursed into a fine line. "It would seem so. Until just this morning, Lord First acted in much the same way as you would expect - in the same way all Ones have acted upon assuming the mantle."

Three felt a bubble of acidic anxiety surface in her gut, but she fought as hard as she could to ignore it.

"But at this morning's prayer, he..." Hoshu stopped, shook his head. "He _spoke_ to me."

Three blinked, leaned forward, suddenly _quite_ concerned. "Hoshu? Did you say he spoke to you?"

"Yes, and it wasn't simply his meditative hours. I know, I know, such an instance occurs at most once, maybe twice for each One after they fuse with the tree, but-"

"Hoshu, did you say my grandfather _spoke to you_?"

Hoshu nodded. "This time was unlike all the others, with all the other monks. He looked right at me, met my eyes with his, and said... something." He licked his lips, running his tongue over his teeth in worry. "I can't quite remember-"

"He spoke to us," Three said, eyes wide and skin paling. "Why in the world would he speak to us?" She froze, a sudden realization striking cold worry through her body like a winter breeze from the northern seas. "I wonder..."

"You wonder what, child?"

"Hoshu, I..." Three paused, chewing on the words that ran through her mind. "I've been seeing things."

The monk cocked his head to the side and looked at her. " _Seeing_ things?"

"Yes, I can't quite explain it, but these... _things_ keep appearing in front of me." She shook her head. "They started out as blurs, and they would bumble about in the forests and across the fields between my cabin and the village, and I never understood what was going on."

Hoshu's pale brow paled further. "Is that why you have locked yourself away these past few weeks?"

"I can't explain it," Three said, wincing, rubbing at her forehead. "Now I'm seeing them everywhere."

A sudden realization hit her, and she felt a knot of unease sink to the bottom of her stomach like a stone.

"Hoshu, how many boats are in the harbor right now?"

Hoshu gave her a very confused, very surprised look. "Why do you want to know that?"

"Because, I want to know if what I'm seeing is true."

The monk opened his mouth in thought, and counted on his fingers. "Well, I can't recall more than just a few from this morning's assembly, but I would say no more than five?"

"Hoshu, I counted _thirty-eight_ this morning."

The bald man froze.

"Oh," he muttered. "Oh dear."

And then, as a cloud blotted out the sun, the villagers started to scream.

* * *

The hospital was never a particularly pleasant place to spend the night, injured or not. Hinata knew that firsthand.

It all started with her teammates, and Kiba's seemingly ceaseless ability to end up bedridden and borderline comatose after every challenging mission. She brought flowers on those occasions, posited them alongside the others on the windowsill, and waited.

She would curl up on the chair closest to the door with her jacket draped over her shoulders the wrong way around in a makeshift blanket, watch in tense silence as the sun dipped past the window and her eyelids drooped down her face, and fall asleep in an awkward huddle that left her sore and achy and far too uncomfortable the next morning when Akamaru would jump in her lap and start licking at her exposed hands.

Then Hinata started dating Naruto, and her visits to the hospital grew both in frequency and duration. She still brought flowers, still slept in her chair, but it was Sakura who would shake her awake instead of Kiba's dog, and it was the rising of the sun that would put her to sleep, not its setting.

And then they had kids. And Hinata never wanted to see another hospital room again.

'And yet here I am,' she thought to herself, as she half-leaned, half-lay across Boruto's bed. She sat beside him, twirling his hair between her fingertips, watching the way his chest rose and fell, rose and fell with each slow heartbeat.

Sakura had gone. Tsunade had left to take on other duties - as to what those were, exactly, Hinata was unsure - and Shikamaru and the Sixth had disappeared as well.

She was, for all intents and purposes, alone.

Himawari muttered something in her sleep from the cot in the corner, and Hinata remembered just how untrue that statement was.

She sighed, leaned up and settled onto her feet. The sun had risen, it had seemed, and left the rest of them asleep behind the dark embrace of drawn curtains and shadowed doorways. With a quiet breath of feigned confidence, Hinata began her day.

She brushed her teeth in the small wash closet attached to their room, assembled an outfit that, at the very least, made her appear collected and presentable should the need for her to go out arise, and padded her way around the hospital beds to open the blinds and let fresh sunlight in.

The small clock on the wall read a number far earlier than the one she was expecting, and she did the mental math to determine just how much longer she had until the nurses made their morning rounds.

She had been locked out of time for over a week, just waiting for something to happen - waiting for _anything_ to happen.

She felt weak.

A machine on the wall beeped, and Hinata jumped.

'Nothing out of the ordinary,' she reminded herself, when she forced her erratic mind to accept that fact that it was just the clock. Or the heart rate monitor. Or something of that nature.

The silence was deafening.

Her subconscious continued to unravel around itself in anxious worry, and she sighed, sinking back down into her chair next to her son.

Back where she started.

Himawari stirred behind her.

"Momma?"

Hinata turned in her chair, leaned up, and cast her daughter a weak smile. She tried to speak, cleared her throat when nothing but a muffled croak came out. "Yes, sweetheart?"

"When're Boruto and Daddy gonna wake up?"

Hinata's heart didn't skip a beat so much as it stumbled around one. "Well, we don't know." She smiled again, just as fake. "But the doctors and Auntie Sakura are hard at work. They'll figure something out."

Himawari frowned, twisted her fingers together in her lap across her blanket, and nodded. "Alright."

And then she was up, walking through a daily routine of her own.

Hinata watched Himawari move about, fascinated. It never ceased to amaze her just how much her daughter had grown in recent months - how much she had _matured_. Their family had never been particularly normal, she had admitted that to herself many years before, but was that really such a bad thing? After all, who ever said families _had_ to be normal?

The Uzumakis were normal in their abnormality. And that was something Hinata could take pride in.

The machine on the wall beeped again.

"Hima," she called out, "make sure you brush your teeth this time. I know you didn't last night."

"I know, Mom," Himawari drawled from the bathroom, and Hinata felt satisfied her lazy parenting had been effective when the tap sprang to life in the other room.

She turned to the side, pulled a handkerchief from the tote bag she had somewhat hidden underneath her husband's bed, and dabbed the end of it in the glass of water one of the nurses must have set out for her after she had fallen asleep the night before.

"Come back to me," she muttered, running the damp cloth across Naruto's face.

The machine on the wall beeped again.

Naruto's eyes shot open, wild and unfocused.

Hinata lurched, leaped back onto her feet. Her chair fell backward in an explosive clatter, and she stumbled over it as she took a step back. "Wh-what-"

The army of machines in the room began to scream and wail, and Hinata barely noticed the frantic tugging on her shirt, the way her daughter was yelling ' _Boruto's doing it too! Boruto's doing it too!'_

The machine on the wall beeped again.

Or was that her heart?

No… it was the nurses, swarming into the room like an angry hive of bees.

Another tug, another shout… but still she stared, watching the way Naruto's misshapen pupils flickered across the blue of his eyes.

They were flipping him over on his side, and the eyes were gone again, shielded by blond—

"We need to clear his airways!" a nurse said, and Hinata snapped to attention.

"Mama!" Himawari wailed.

Beep.

"Lady Hinata," a nurse said, pulling on her arm. "We need you to leave, please—"

Beep.

Naruto was awake, gurgling spittle onto the floor, the alarms in the west wing of the hospital flaring red and shouting like an enraged child, and Hinata was just _standing there—_

_Beep_.

* * *

Boruto felt like he was floating.

They were all standing in the middle of the kitchen one moment – Jiraiya picking at his nose without a care for who saw it; his father smiling that big, bold smile of his that kind of annoyed him, kind of made the bubble of doubt in his gut shrink just a _bit_ more; his grandfather running a finger across an old scroll and frowning at it; his grandmother squeezing his shoulder and telling him that if he never came back she'd track him down in the afterlife herself because ' _like hell would I let a decent sparring partner like you get away from me like that'_ –

–and then Minato touched his shoulder, and he was alone.

Alone in a sea of pearl-white _nothingness._

He blinked, saw the fuzzy outline of a ceiling, saw a crowd of people huddled around him and heard the hiss of static…

A crack. A flash. A whirl of wind and sound and _confusion_ —

Boruto blinked again, and he was no longer alone.

* * *

The screaming started moments after they arrived.

The Hiraishin, to all of Minato's credit, was as silent as a breath of wind. One second Naruto was waving his mother goodbye, the next he was shielding the sharp sunlight from his eyes and trying not to choke on the bitter sea air that hit him like a slap to the face.

But while the Hiraishin may have been inconspicuous, the motley crew that had arrived in the Village Hidden in the Sea was anything but.

"Look!" Minato said, not skipping a beat, his sandaled shoes clamoring across the wooden platform of the boardwalk the instant an opening appeared in the waves of civilians muddling about around them. "Is that mountain volcanic? Is that why this island is so reclusive? It would certainly explain the lack of geographic constructs that may have hinted at something like this in…"

He vanished into the crowd, swept away by an army of dueling voices.

Perhaps it was Minato's strange accent. Perhaps it was Obito, with his dead eye and scarred face. Perhaps it was Jiraiya's bizarre appearance, or Naruto's missing limb, or the fact that they were the only ones with hair for what seemed like _miles_ in every direction.

The market erupted into chaos.

Minato was at their side again the instant the crowd began to move. Children were bundled up by parents, the venders in the stalls ducked underneath goods-packed countertops, and all the while the Leaf Shinobi stood still, just watching and trying not to make any sudden movements.

"I'll handle this," Jiraiya said, puffing out his chest and taking a step forward. "They want an introduction? I'll show them an introduction—"

"No, Sensei," Minato said, forcing an arm in front of the man, narrowing his eyes at the shadows between two buildings on the far side of the market. "We don't want to do anything brash."

Naruto blinked, followed Minato's eyeline, hummed when he realized what was happening. "Yeah," he said. "Wouldn't want to ruin our first impression."

Obito let out a sound that sounded suspiciously like a snort, but was otherwise silent.

"You can come out, you know," Minato called, voice carrying through the warm air, across empty boardwalk. "We mean you no harm."

Naruto watched as the arrowhead pointing around the shadowy corner became an arrow, and then a bow, and then an angry bald man in long, flowing beige robes.

"What are you?" the monk called out, bow taut and eager.

" _What_ are we?" Jiraiya scoffed. "Now that's just rude."

"We come peacefully," Minato called out, voice steady and firm.

Naruto smiled. Any remaining doubts in his father's abilities to lead and project strength through his voice alone were all but wiped away, and he quickly remembered just why it was that Minato was chosen as the Fourth Hokage in the first place.

"Please," Minato said, "we apologize for disrupting your marketplace. But this was the only way we could travel here."

Jiraiya mumbled something that sounded like, "wasn't _my_ fault the toads placed the seal in the middle of the street."

The man's bow turned at the sound, and the toad sage rolled his eyes. "Oh, please. I'm not trying to cause any trouble here either."

"Your voices," the monk said with a frown, "are not from here."

"Our voices?" Boruto asked.

"I think he means our accents," Minato answered, not breaking eye contact.

"What business do you have in our village?"

With each passing step, Naruto noticed the way the bow trembled and swayed.

"Your village has access to an... ability," Minato said. "We came here in hopes of discussing peaceful, diplomatic ways that we might go about being able to use that ability to solve a problem we have."

Jiraiya sighed, crossing his arms. "Forget it, kid; he's not going to just let us walk in here all willy-nilly."

"Dad..." Boruto said, tugging on Naruto's loose sleeve.

"I know," he said, still eyeing the shadowy corner.

The monk traced their lines of sight, and his pale skin grew paler. "W-what are you looking at?" he asked, turning the bow on Naruto.

The arrow shook like a leaf between the man's fingertips.

Naruto raised his hand into the air and took a gentle step forward. "You can come out," he called towards the buildings. "We know you're there. But like we've already said, you have nothing to fear."

"Stop... stop talking!" the monk said, eyes wide. "Please, just leave! Never return!"

"Hoshu, it's obvious they know I am here. And I do not think they mean to harm us, as they have said."

A second figure appeared from the shadows, arms crossed and eyes curious.

"Is that..." Naruto said, furrowing his brow.

"Three?!" Boruto blurted out.

The monk jumped, and the arrow flew.

Metal rushed through air with the shriek of a banshee, hanging suspended in the salty air for what felt like an eternity.

Naruto blinked, watched the projectile soar towards them.

Several things happened at once.

Minato appeared at the monk's side the instant the arrow was released, his fingers wrapping around the upper limb of his bow. A cloud of smoke rushed into the village square, revealing Jiraiya standing atop a steel-covered toad, armor plated backside blocking the shot. Obito remained motionless, but his lone eye was wide in surprise.

But it was Boruto, kunai raised and level with his face, that Naruto saw first.

The arrow, bent and disfigured, lay in a heap at his feet.

Boruto blinked, looked from his hands to the floor to his hands, turned towards his father. "Did I do that?"

Naruto smirked. "I'd say so."

"We have 3 S-class ninja and a missing-nin that once ran an entire village in our group, and we can't even block a simple arrow," Jiraiya said, palm rubbing against his forehead. The toad disappeared from underneath him in a confused croak. "Typical."

Minato pulled the bow forward, up and out of the grasp of the gaping monk. His free hand wrapped around the man's arm. "I am willing to let that slide," he said, voice cool as steel, "if you listen to what I have been trying to say since the start."

"I… but… that…" Hoshu floundered. "That… wasn't supposed to happen! I—"

"His hand slipped," Three said, walking up to them. "I could see it from where I was. Please. We mean you no harm – Hoshu was just being cautious. It is necessary in such trying times as these."

Naruto spoke up. "Trying times? How so?"

Three bit her lip. Hoshu shuffled in Minato's grasp, looked over his shoulder, opened and closed his mouth like a fish out of water. "Three, I—"

"I think… I think that they're trustworthy," Three said.

"How?" Hoshu twisted, winced when Minato narrowed his eyes and gripped his wrists tighter. "Please, child, you must use your head in times of peril such as these. You should know this by now."

Three's demeanor shifted from calm but curious to rigid and fierce. "Now is not the time for a life lesson, Hoshu."

Hoshu froze, let out a controlled breath, pursed his lips across his face.

Three frowned, took a step forward. Her leather sandals ghosted over the waterlogged plank of wood, and she paid them no mind when they caught on the splintered edges of a frayed board.

She stopped in front of Boruto.

"You," she said, cocking her head to the side and raising a brow. "Do I know you?"

"I… uh…"

Boruto turned, looked up at his father.

Naruto shrugged.

"I mean, kinda?" Boruto said, running a hand down his neck. "It's, um, complicated."

"Hoshu," Three murmured, taking a step back. "You were asking me why I was standing in the sun, staring at the sky?"

She smiled. "It would appear that I've finally found your answer."

* * *

Boruto wasn't quite sure what to make of the Hidden Sea.

The village itself was small, but the sparse buildings and dense foliage weaved up and into the mountainside like the web of an erratic spider. What little there was of the Hidden Sea was confined to one miniscule corner of the island where the trees were thinner and the land was somewhat level, and as they climbed through the underbrush, it shrank behind them like the evening sun.

The forest grew thicker with each passing turn of the mountain, and after the fourth branch smacked him across the face, Boruto prodded his father on the waist. "How much longer?"

"I have no idea," Naruto smiled, nodding ahead. "I'm just as bored as you are."

"It's hot," Boruto said, wincing as he pulled his arms away from his sides and felt the wet, sweat-soaked fabric of his new undershirt cling to his body. "Why are we going all the way up here anyways?"

"We must visit One," Hoshu said from the front of their party, looking back over his shoulder, still hacking away at the foliage with a large blade.

"Is it always this... dense?" Obito said, voice quiet and resigned from beside Boruto.

Naruto blinked in surprise, but shrugged and redirected the question at Hoshu when he was certain the man wasn't going to hurt himself with his machete.

"The forest grows like a child," Hoshu smiled, and sliced through a dense patch of dangling vines. "It is unruly. Difficult. But because of that, we know it is alive."

"The forest is the heart of the village," Three said. She was quiet - almost reluctant. "If it dies, we die as well. Dense forests signify a hearty future for our people."

"Fascinating," Minato said.

"More like 'frustrating'," Jiraiya grumbled, ducking underneath another low-hanging branch. "Do you know how difficult it is to navigate through this when you're the tallest person for miles?" He walked face-first into a massive spiderweb, and growled. "Let me burn a hole through this place. I'll do it, Minato. Just give the word."

"While I'm honored you're asking your Hokage for advice rather than just doing it anyway, I'm afraid I'm going to have to say no, Jiraiya-sensei," Minato smiled. "This jungle is very important to these people. It would be like if a foreign emissary asked to blast a hole through the Hokage Monument purely because he had to walk around it. Would _you_ take kindly to that?"

Jiraiya muttered something under his breath, but otherwise remained silent.

"We are almost there," Hoshu called out from the front. "I can see the clearing up ahead."

"I can't," Jiraiya said.

Boruto had to agree with the Sannin. When they arrived at the top of the mountain, the forest was as dense as it had been on their journey there - perhaps even worse. But Hoshu continued chopping away at the wilderness, until a reasonable space had been cleared, and they could stretch out more.

Hoshu led them through a dense thicket of tall grass, and they were suddenly standing on bare earth.

The low hum of the forest around them dulled to a whisper.

A massive tree, larger than _any_ Boruto had ever seen, arched high into the sky above them.

And sitting at the base, nestled between the roots, was a man.

Boruto strained his eyes through the low light. 'One' was old, that much he could see. He was bald, like the rest of the Hidden Sea, but Boruto couldn't tell if it was because of tradition or simply because of age. The roots of the tall tree, thicker than he himself was wide, seemed to grow over and across One's crossed legs, and a dark moss, black as pitch, grew up his body like a bizarre garment.

"I will approach," Hoshu whispered.

Boruto looked up at his father, expecting his father to be as surprised as he was. Instead, Naruto's face was steeled and stoic.

He had seen that face before. He'd seen it far too many times.

"Dad?" _What's wrong?_

Naruto blinked, and his 'Hokage face', as Himawari had dubbed it, receded. He looked down and met Boruto's gaze, smiled, and sighed. "Sorry. I just remembered something from my childhood. That's all."

Boruto wasn't convinced, but pursued the matter no further.

Hoshu dropped to his knees and bowed low, muttering something quiet underneath his breath.

One spoke back.

Three gasped beside Boruto, and Hoshu jumped up in shock.

"Was that not supposed to happen?" Boruto said, turning to Three and raising an eyebrow.

The girl shook her head.

Hoshu scrambled to his feet, and beckoned the Leaf nin closer.

"He... wishes to speak with you," the monk said, eyes wide. "This... this hasn't happened in over six hundred years."

A voice - low and gravelly, like stones skipping along a riverbed underneath a strong current, called to them.

"Can you speak?"

Naruto opened his mouth, closed it, and took a step forward. But Minato beat him to it. "We can. You are One?"

"I think he's in some kind of coma." One's eyes remained open, but fixated on some faraway point. "He's unresponsive."

Minato pursed his eyebrows across his forehead. "I'm sorry?"

"Here, let me check his vitals," One said. His voice changed pitch slightly - as if he was speaking from another mouth.

The first voice again. "Are you sure that's okay? The villagers down at the base of the mountain talked about this man like he was some sort of god."

Naruto frowned, turned to Hoshu. "What? What's he talking about?"

The spark in the monk's eyes faded, and he sighed. "Oh. It would appear I was mistaken."

"Mistaken?"

"Yes," Hoshu said. "One is simply in meditation. He speaks in tongues quite frequently."

"His heart rate is a bit erratic," One said, in the more effeminate voice. "But otherwise, he feels fine. I have no idea what the black stuff is, though. It's like solid bone."

Minato took a step forward. "I'm sorry, did he just say 'black stuff'?"

"That's what I heard," Jiraiya said.

"Now, correct me if I'm wrong, considering we have been here all of a few hours and I don't know much about their culture, but… does that sound like _anything_ these people would say?"

Jiraiya narrowed his eyes. "You're right."

"It would appear he's fused to the tree," One said, in a third voice.

"Yeah, that's what it looks like." The feminine voice again.

"What's he doing?" Boruto asked. "It's like he's having a conversation with himself."

Minato leaned down onto his knees and leveled his gaze with One's glossy stare. "That's what it _seems_ like."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa. Seriously? You're going to light up here? Come on, Shikamaru, this is a holy site. We're not exactly here on holiday."

Naruto and Boruto both jumped.

Minato raised an eyebrow. "Shikamaru? As in... a Nara?"

"Look, I can't think straight right now," the first voice said. "I'll be careful."

"Sakura," the third voice said, and Naruto stood shock-still. "What else can you see?"

"Well, it seems like he's listening to us," 'Sakura' said. "But his eyes aren't responding to light stimulation, and he's not moving other than just to breathe." One sighed in a very short huff. "I don't know, Kakashi-sensei. This looks like a dead end."

"Kakashi- _sensei?_ " Minato parroted. "I'm sorry, _what?_ "

"Is anyone else," Naruto said, "thinking what I'm thinking?"

"It's impossible. Statistically impossible," Minato said, eyes still locked on One.

"Well, for the sake of Naruto and his son, let's hope it isn't," One said.

"Okay, _that's_ something," Minato said.

Obito took a step forward, Sharingan active. "This tree... it's chakra. All of it." He squinted, still clutching at his arm. "It's _moving_."

"What? Where?" Naruto said.

"I don't know," Obito muttered, frowning. "It's there one second, and then just... _not_ the next." He growled in frustration. "It's... it's confusing." He winced and rubbed at his eyes with his empty hand. "And it hurts."

"What's going on?" Boruto said, confused.

"I think," Minato said, shaking his head, "that we're listening in on a conversation occurring in your universe." He let out an amazed chuckle. "If... if this is possible, then there might just be a way for us to connect our two worlds after all. Talk about lucky."

"The fact we're here and this is happening," Jiraiya said, shaking his head. "If that isn't a sign…"

A bubble of excited butterflies burst in Boruto's stomach.

Naruto smiled, pulled his son in at the side for a quiet hug. "We might have a better chance of getting home than we thought."


	19. Chapter 19

Boruto sat on the porch of Hoshu’s home and watched the sun set over the ocean.

He watched the horizon, watched the way the water blinked over the edge like stars in a cloudless purple sky. The boardwalk crawled with life far down the mountainside, dragged the boats in from the harbor, and cleaned the sea, slowly, one vessel at a time.

He looked down, kicked his legs in the air off the wooden balcony. A swarm of mosquitos prickled at the skin of his legs, and Boruto just watched them land, do their business, and leave.

He thought of his father, and his grandfather, and all of the other members of their strange group sitting in the dining room of Hoshu’s house behind him, pouring over maps and plans and books with words in them ten times longer than anything Boruto had ever seen before. They were making progress, and he was sitting outside in the cool humid air doing his best to avoid it.

That’s what they were, he thought, drawing his legs up into his chest and planting his chin across his knees. That’s what _he_ was.

A mosquito. A parasite. A vagrant traveler, stuck out of place.

Everyone seemed to have everything else under control. There was the revelation with the man under the tree, the conversation with the others from the time they belonged in, and now a plan to get them home seemed to be coming together like the corners of an incomplete puzzle.

Boruto scowled and tightened his grip around his legs. Introspection was not his strong suit. He, like his father, preferred action over caution - which probably explained a few things. He wasn't dumb by any sense of the word, but he did opt to work with his feet and hands over his brain, and that had its consequences.

So why was he worrying? Why did he care?

Part of him knew he would be making it home alive. Another part wasn’t so sure, but was still optimistic – as much sense as that made.

Maybe that was why he felt drawn to his father, especially now. Another Boruto – a younger, less forgiving Boruto from an age when his father had only just become the Seventh Hokage – would have bolted at the first chance he got. _That_ Boruto had a point to prove; had a lesson to teach.  His father scared him, only because Naruto's life was one he didn't want.

There was no mistaking that their time together had improved their relationship, no matter how trivial. His father represented everything Boruto despised, and a deep, unrepentant part of him worried that Naruto’s choices would infect his own and turn him towards a path that led nowhere but as a face on the side of the Hokage Mountain.

The rebellious teenager raging within Boruto made him anxious. And anxiety bred fear.

Fear of loneliness, even from a distance so little as a few yards, from as far away as a pair of walls and a doorway. Fear of change, because change brought pain. Fear for his place in the world, and fear that when he found it it wouldn’t be something he liked.

He didn’t want to be Hokage. He didn’t want to be like his father. He wanted to be something different.

He heard a shout behind him, and his rumination shattered.

Footsteps prattled across the wooden floor, and Boruto lurched to his feet just in time to see Three blast past, jump off of the ledge, and dart down the wooded village streets.

Boruto blinked. He watched the back of her head disappear behind the gentle curve of the road, and chewed over a decision in his mind.

He was wasting time sitting around, locked up inside his head and running in aimless circles. In the end, he shrugged, and chased after her, paying no mind to the blur of the forest around him.

Perhaps, Boruto thought, as he ducked around trees and pumped chakra into his legs, this journey could change everything. Perhaps he would discover what it meant to be an Uzumaki; perhaps he would discover what it meant to be _him._

He grinned, bit at the humid night air with his teeth. Change was coming, and it was in his hands this time. His confidence bloomed; his determination soared.

He worked best on his feet, after all.

* * *

 

"What was that all about?” Jiraiya asked. He frowned, watched as the wood-framed door jostled shut against the side of Hoshu’s house and Three’s shadow disappeared into the fading sunlight.

Hoshu smiled, eyes pulled too tight. “Umm, I would not worry about her. She is… temperamental.”

Jiraiya stared at him for a moment, eyebrow raised, but kept quiet.

“Back on topic,” Minato said with a gentle edge. “Do you think we will be able to make it up the mountain tomorrow morning?”

“I… am not sure,” Hoshu said, cupping his mug of tea and staring into it like a man on trial. “The underbrush has surely regrown by now. If we were to summit the mountain again, it would certainly take hours, much like it did today.”

“That’s fine,” Minato said, waving a hand and turning back to his small stack of notes in the same motion. “I just needed to make sure we were allowed up to the top.”

Hoshu blinked, eyelids coming down like anvils. “Are you not concerned about the time it could take?”

Minato winked at him. “Nope.”

“What did you tag?” Jiraiya asked with a roll of his eyes. “I’m not sure that the people of this village will appreciate you leaving your messy seals on everything you touch, Minato.”

“The underside of a leaf,” Minato said.

“Fitting,” Naruto said.

“I thought so,” Minato said with an easy smile.

Hoshu frowned. “I… am not sure I follow.”

“We’ll be able to make it to the mountaintop instantaneously,” Naruto explained. “Don’t worry about wasting our time.”

The monk deflated, his bluff called. “I see.”

“What more can you tell us of this ‘One’ individual?” Minato asked, propping his pen between his fingers and leaning across the table to meet Hoshu’s eye.

“Lord First?” Hoshu blinked. “Lord First is our leader. He is the being through which all of our important village decisions must be passed through.”

“And he communicates with you?”

Hoshu opened his mouth, paused, let out a breath. “He speaks in tongues, yes, but it can be… cryptic sometimes. It is the duty of the monks to process his teachings and make them into law.”

Jiraiya raised an eyebrow, propping his elbow up on the table. “So you’re saying the monks are in charge here.” He gave Hoshu a pointed stare. “ _You’re_ in charge here.”

Hoshu chewed on his lip. “In a manner of speaking. I suppose you could make the case.”

“That’s why you went to One before you allowed us to speak with him,” Minato muttered, nodding. “You were asking permission.”

“Yes, of course,” he said. “As I say, Lord First is the true leader. I am merely his mouthpiece.”

“Does Lord First… ever have moments of clarity?” Minato asked. “Where he’s speaking to you directly?”

Hoshu’s gaze dropped back to his tea, and Naruto watched the way his eyes widened. They were on to something, that much was certain.

“What is it,” the monk asked, “that you intend to do here?”

Naruto sighed. “We’re here because we don’t belong.”

Hoshu gave him a confused frown.

“My son and I,” Naruto continued. “We aren’t from this world. We’re from a different one.”

“We think,” Minato said.

“We think,” Naruto corrected.

“Another world?” Hoshu said. He raised an eyebrow.

Naruto leaned back in his chair. “Yep. And we think it might have something to do with Three.”

Hoshu paused, took a breath, and forced the tension in his shoulders out his nose in a huff.

“That poor girl,” he said after a moment, tone shifted and voice cool and careful. “She doesn’t deserve any of this.”

Jiraiya blinked. “What?”

"I am sorry," Hoshu said, stilted smile stretched across his face, "but it seems that I have forgotten about my other duties for the evening. You will have to excuse me."

He rose from the table, pushed his tea towards the center, and threaded his arms through the sleeves in his cloak. He made a quick exit through the kitchen door, footsteps light but deliberate.

The birds chirped an uneven tune from outside the open window, and Naruto pursed his lips.

"That," he frowned, "was weird."

"I think we made some decent progress here," Minato said with a shrug. "This went better than I expected, all things considered."

Naruto smirked, pumped his shoulders, and mimicked his father. "Well, I guess so." He rotated in his chair, threw his arm over the back and raised an eyebrow at Jiraiya. "So what's the plan?"

"We need to get more information out of him."

Obito appeared from the corner of the room like an ethereal afterthought, disregarded by the tension of diplomatic conversation.

The edges around Minato's frown softened. "Who do you mean, Obito?"

"That man," the boy said, curling his lip. He played with the twisted fabric at the end of his tattered sleeve. "'One'. He's playing us. I can see it."

"Obito, you can't know that."

"I saw it," he repeated, turning his coal-black eye on his sensei. "That tree. It's... not normal."

Naruto watched the way he fidgeted in his seat. "How so?"

"Chakra," Obito said, but his eye was fierce. "The whole thing was a giant chakra _bomb."_

"That's some strong language," Jiraiya said.

"You said it was moving?" When Obito nodded, Minato jotted down a few notes in the margins of his paper and bit his lip. "That's strange."

"It was all funneling into him," Obito said. He lowered his voice and looked around the room, eye narrowed. "He was controlling everything. I know he was."

Minato's eyes widened. "You don't think..."

Naruto spun in his seat. "What?"

"Wait here," Minato said, as though the others had a choice in the matter, and disappeared in a whisper of wind.

His pen hadn't even hit the table yet when he reappeared, another stack of books in his hands.

Jiraiya pulled the top one off the pile and read the cover. He snorted. "Minato, this is basic chakra theory. What good's it going to do?"

"When in doubt, start with the basics and work your way back up," the Fourth said, taking the book from Jiraiya with a smooth flick of the wrist. "Look here."

Naruto leaned over the table to get a better glance at the page Minato had flipped to, and raised an eyebrow. "What's that? A map of the human chakra system?"

Minato's smile was sharp and knowing. "Exactly."

"I'm not sure I follow," Jiraiya said.

"When Obito said the chakra was flowing, I had an idea," Minato said. "Chakra doesn't really _flow_. At least, not in most things."

"It's gotta be a living thing, and have a developed chakra network," Jiraiya agreed.

"Exactly." Minato traced a vein in the drawing, following the light blue line across the body of the diagram. "Nature loves to copy itself, after all. If you've seen something in one place, you'll probably see it again somewhere else."

He jabbed a finger into the figure's heart - the symbol for the eighth gate. "Maybe what we're seeing here isn't a tree, but a living thing. A _massive_ source of chakra, with veins and gates and everything we're used to."

Obito frowned. "And One?"

Minato's smile was layered with the fine fringe of victory. "One is the brain. He’s the one controlling everything."

Naruto opened his mouth, closed it, then opened it again.

"Why would it need a brain?" Jiraiya asked. "It's a tree. Why can't it just use whatever a tree uses? Trees have nature chakra, after all."

Minato shoved the book to the side and leaned over the table, eyes bright. "That's because this is no ordinary tree."

Naruto frowned, but nodded. "The voices we heard."

Minato snapped and pointed at his son. "Exactly. I don't know why it exists, or how it happened, or who did it, but that tree can communicate between universes."

"That's why the chakra disappeared and reappeared," Obito said, eye wide. "It was _going somewhere._ "

"That's it, then," Minato said, chuckling. "The connection point we've been looking for. And if One is the brain..."

Naruto smiled. "...then we can talk to it."

* * *

 

"Hey! Hey, wait up!"

Boruto huffed, leaves catching on his clothes as he leapt over a wall of solid branches, chasing after the girl that had caused him more problems in his recent life than anybody else.

Save for, maybe, his dad.

She froze when he spoke, spun around, and cornered him with a stare that meant pain and certain death if he said something she didn't exactly agree with. He saw it many times over with his friend Sarada, and on his mother enough times to know she was serious when she needed to be.

"You're not like the other Three," he blurted out before he could help himself.

Three frowned. "Well, I'm sorry to hear that. Whatever that means."

She turned and marched away, pace slow but steady. Boruto kept up easily.

"What's wrong?" he asked, tucking his hands into his pockets and following her down the dusty roads into town.

"Leave me alone," she muttered. "I left for a reason. I wish to be by myself right now."

He was silent for a moment, watching the trees around them dwindle and the buildings reappear. They were making their way through the village, towards the outskirts on the _other_ side of the island, walking at a pace so excruciatingly slow Boruto felt like tearing his hair out.

"We're probably gonna go back up the mountain tomorrow morning," he said, once he couldn't help himself anymore and the silence began to _hurt._ "I dunno why we've gotta be up there, but... my dad's gonna make me go anyways, because I know him." He forced a laugh, winced at how cheesy he sounded.

"I-I'm not hitting on you or anything," he felt the need to say, after Three continued to ignore him. "I promise."

Three froze in her tracks. She turned, stared at him, and raised an eyebrow. "I beg your pardon?"

Boruto blanched. "Shit, uhh..."

"I'm sixteen," she said, shaking her head. "Besides, I'm not allowed to bear children."

"I never said anything about children!" Boruto said, sputtering and jumping in front of her. "I was just worried about you is all, y'know! People don't just run off like that!"

"You're not very good at this, are you?"

Boruto’s confidence sank like a torpedoed steamboat. "No."

Three laughed, brought her hand up to her face to hide it. "I can tell."

She walked around him, but when Boruto followed, stubborn and determined, she didn’t ask him to leave again.

"Where are you going?" he asked, catching up and matching her pace with a pout. "It's getting kinda late. Isn't that Hoshu guy gonna get mad at you or something? I know my dad’ll probably be mad that I left."

"Hoshu isn't my father," Three said, her voice biting in its politeness.

"Then what is he?" Boruto said.

“A caretaker,” she said, narrowing her eyes at the street in front of her. “A family friend. My father trusted him.”

“He sure seems to worry about you,” Boruto said.

“He shouldn’t,” Three said.

They crossed the village in relative silence, until the tall, arching green wall of the far jungle began to split apart into individual trees. Farmland, as sparse as it was, came and went, and before long, Boruto was standing on the front porch of a small cottage near the edge of the forest.

He turned, looked down the slow slope of the mountain to where it dropped off into the ocean, traced the road back to the center of the village and blinked.

“Is this where you live?” Boruto asked.

“Yes,” Three replied, and closed the door in his face.

He frowned, threaded his fingers into his pockets, and made his way back just as the last light of the day disappeared behind the wall of water on the horizon.

_“Why is she so far away?”_

* * *

 

They arrived in a hurricane of wind and nausea and disorientation.

The mountaintop clearing looked the same as they had left it, and while Three clutched at her chest and Hoshu emptied his stomach behind a nearby tree, the blond man with whiskerless cheeks moved forward with a fire in his step and a fierceness in his eye.

"I need to speak to One," he said, crouching onto his knees and leaning forward. He reached out, made to pull at One’s eyelids to see if he was awake, and Hoshu ran forward with a yelp, stumbling over himself.

Three flinched. Her grandfather stood still as stone.

“No!” Hoshu shouted, pulling Minato away. “You mustn’t! You mustn’t do that!”

Minato took a few steps back and let himself be pulled aside, out of arm’s reach. “What?”

“Not even the monks may touch Lord First!” Hoshu said, teeth clenched.

“I’m… sorry,” Minato said. “I didn’t mean to disrespect—”

“—The chances of anything happening today?”

The group lurched at the flint-on-iron sound of One’s voice, booming over the field from his rooted position under the shade of the tallest tree.

“Few and far between,” One said again, softer. "At least, that's what I'd wager."

“Well, Sakura,” One said with another voice. “you never know with these sorts of things. The monks down at the base of the mountain seemed cautiously optimistic, at the very least.”

“They’re here again,” Naruto said, turning to Jiraiya and Minato. “That’s them.”

Minato launched into inspection mode, taking quiet, careful steps between the raised roots along the forest floor. His eyes were wide and calculating, his mouth thin and pursed.

“No change from yesterday,” One said again, this time with the woman's voice. “He’s still unresponsive.”

“How can you be sure?” the first voice asked. “You’re not even touching him.”

“The monks gave us very specific instructions,” the second said. “Not touching him was the highest rule on the list.”

Minato continued to circle One, eyes narrowed. “Obito,” he said after the conversation paused, “do you see anything with your Sharingan?”

The one-eyed boy took a few steps forward. He blinked. “Nothing different,” he said, voice quiet. “Chakra keeps appearing and disappearing. It's just like it was before.”

"Let me know if anything changes," Minato said.

Three stared at her grandfather's silhouette nestled between the roots of the Holy Tree and watched his breathing pulse with the wind. His mouth moved like a marionette's, tick-tick-ticking along with each careful word.

She felt a tickle at the back of her gut, and passed it off to nerves.

"We don't have all the time in the world, you know," the first voice said. "I've got to be back in the Leaf in three days for a summit. And with Naruto gone..."

The third voice murmured in agreement. "It's probably best to keep things short. Besides, we didn't exactly arrive in a,” a pause, “ _diplomatic_ fashion."

Minato blinked, turned toward the man he called his son. "You sound important."

Naruto raised an eyebrow. "You could say that," he said with a smile.

"I guess I can run another diagnostic jutsu," the woman’s voice said. "Maybe we'll find something."

Silence fell, and Minato leaned close. Hoshu bit his lip.

"Wait!" Obito blurted out, eye wide. "I see a lot of green chakra. It's all over him. He's glowing, almost. Why is he glowing? He wasn’t before."

"Amazing," Minato murmured. "He can channel chakra between dimensions? That must be what’s going on here."

Three frowned. The bubble in her gut grew.

"Wait," One said in the first voice. "Who said that?"

"Wasn't me," the female voice said. "Kakashi-sensei?"

"Could it have been One?" 'Kakashi-sensei' said.

"Did they hear me?" Minato said, raising an eyebrow.

"It _was_ One," the female said. “He just said something.”

"Sakura?" Naruto jumped forward, eyes wild. "Can you hear me?"

A pause. “How do you know my name?”

The blond man nearly dropped to his knees, grin threatening to split his face in two. "It's Naruto!"

One went silent. Naruto exchanged a glance with his father, eyes wild.

"...Naruto?" Sakura said.

"Yeah, it's me! I've got Boruto here with me!"

"Are you,” she started, skeptical, “trapped inside of this man?"

"No! Look, I'm here with my dad, and the pervy Sage, and Three," Naruto said. "It's a long story."

"You're with Minato-sensei?" Kakashi said. “ _What?_ ”

"Kakashi, it's Minato," the man said. "Listen, I know you're probably skeptical, but we might need your help in this. The fact we're able to communicate at all is promising."

He paused, looked at Naruto and Boruto despite the fact that the others in the other time wouldn't be able to see it. "If we want to have any chance at all of getting Naruto and Boruto home, then we need to work quickly. I have no idea how long we'll be able to communicate through One."

"You're communicating through him too?" the first voice - Shikamaru - said. "Where are you? How is this even possible?”

"We're at the Hidden Sea Village," Naruto said. "Sakura, is everything fine? How are Hinata and Himawari?"

"They're fine, Naruto," Sakura said. "They're both at the hospital, with you."

Naruto furrowed his brow. "The hospital? What do you mean ‘with me’?"

"After the conclusion of the chuunin exams," Shikamaru said with a sigh, "you and Boruto were found unconscious in the middle of the Hokage's office, barely breathing and not responding to anyone or anything. I called Sakura in from leave, and she brought you both to the hospital."

A pause. "She's the only reason you're both alive right now, Naruto."

Three watched the gears in the blond man's head twist and turn against each other. After a moment, he sighed, ran his hand against his face, and shook his head.

"Thank you, Sakura," he said. His eyes moved to Boruto and stayed there.

The bubble in her gut grew.

"That's... an interesting development," Jiraiya said, crossing his arms. "You're both still in your own time?"

"Universe," Minato corrected. His eyes widened in realization and he turned back to One. "We think that rather than travel through time, like it would have seemed at first glance, Naruto and Boruto instead hopped universes. We don't know how, exactly, but that's the current working theory."

"You’re operating off of the multiverse theory?" Shikamaru said, and Minato lit up like a bulb.

"Yes! Exactly. All signs point to it. And if they’re still technically in their home dimension..." He pulled a notebook from his flak jacket and began to scribble away on a weathered page of notes. "Incredible. Absolutely incredible. This may be simpler than I thought."

"Troublesome," Shikamaru said, sighing again. "This proves an entire branch of mathematics obsolete."

The hairs on the back of Three's neck stood on end.

She turned, took a step back, and the world vanished in a haze of black and grey.

She yelped, leaped backwards, brandished the knife in her pocket. Her eyes were saucers, her heart a beating drum in her ears.

The others froze, turned, gave her confused glances.

"Three?" Hoshu said, quiet. "Child, what's wrong?"

She bit down air like a drowned child, scanned the clearing like a baited rat.

Shadows.

She saw their shadows.

"What's going on?" Shikamaru said through One's voice. Three watched one shadow, a ghoulish black gash on the sunny spring sky, as it circled around her grandfather. "Are you--"

Minato narrowed his eyes. "Kakashi? Are you there?"

He crouched down in front of One, stared at the man's expressionless face.

Silence.

"Are they gone?" Naruto said, frowning.

Minato sighed. "It would seem so."

"Damn!" he said, clenching his lone hand into a ball and smashing it into the air at his side. "We were _this close!"_

"We may get another chance," Minato said, finishing a note in his pile of paper.

"We may not," Jiraiya countered.

Three watched the Leaf shinobi gather towards the end of the clearing, then turned to observe Hoshu thread his hands into his sleeves. He tried to hide the shake in his fingers, but Three knew him well enough.

"There will be time tomorrow," he said, smiling through taut lips. "We can always try again tomorrow."

As they circled around Minato and clenched their guts, Three turned, stole one last look at her grandfather.

When they made their way back to Hoshu’s study in a blur of soundless chakra, she held her stomach for a different reason.

* * *

 

Three stared through the gaps in her thatched bamboo roof and watched the stars blink by.

The black of the night sky was reassuring; a calm reminder that darkness was natural in the world. Even still, the space between stars left Three with an unsettling feeling in her gut, and she gnawed on it for hours until the sun came up and washed it all away.

She made her bed, prepared for another day with the Leaf shinobi, and shrouded her thoughts of darkness with the anticipation of work. But her grandfather worried her.

She remembered his smile; remembered his laugh. Remembered the days they would go out to the sea in his long, ornate fishing boat and catch all they could eat, far from the village and wrapped around behind the side of the mountain. He knew all the hidden spots along the ragged coast where no other man would dare, but One was not like the other men.

She remembered staring up the slope of the island, sitting back and watching the sea of jungle sway in the ocean breeze. She would lay across the boat’s center beam and think about the man at the base of the Holy Tree, all alone, trapped in nature, and worry for the day that was sure to come.

When One assumed the role, she lost her grandfather.

He looked the same; had the same slope of the shoulders and lines under his eyes. Yet the man sitting under the tallest tree, rooted in place by village tradition, was not the man she once knew.

Three's head hurt. She remembered the day prior, with strange shadows and unheard voices. She remembered staring at her grandfather, a man she had forgotten, and forgot him even more.

Darkness. Shadows and darkness.

She shivered; clenched her eyes. The image stuck.

When she made her way into town, the sun beating down on her back and beading sweat across her brow, she ran from the darkness that met at her feet.

Three traced the outline of the sunless spot before her, followed the details of her body with her eyes.

Shadows were natural, yes. But no man should have ten thousand.

* * *

 

The next day proved fruitful, but only just.

Shikamaru frowned, running a hand through his loose, unkempt hair and tying it up again. "Do you think he'll speak again today?"

"It's a possibility," Kakashi said. "But I'm more worried about if we'll lose contact halfway through the conversation like yesterday."

"I can't believe it," Sakura said. "We come all this way only to meet them here. Here, of all places."

Shikamaru wiped a bead of sweat from his forehead and looked at the high midday sun. "Well, we might as well get a move on if we want to make it up the mountain by around the time we were there yesterday. Don't want to make all this effort only to just miss them."

He chewed an unlit cigarette between his teeth as he spoke. Kakashi watched him.

"Well, no use taking breaks then," Sakura said. She picked up her blade from where she left it leaning against a nearby tree, and continued hacking away at the jungle.

Kakashi followed, clearing the cuttings and tossing them back into the forest from where they came. He turned behind him, watched Three as she took up the rear, twisting her shirt between her hands and staring up the mountain summit with something akin to curiosity in her eyes.

"Shikamaru," he called, what felt like hours later, when Shikamaru’s internal monologue was breaking through by way of the scowl taut on his lips. "What's on your mind?"

The Nara frowned, plucked the cigarette from his mouth with one hand and lopped away another tree sapling that hadn't been there the day prior with the other. "This is all too easy."

Kakashi hummed. "Yes, I was thinking the same thing."

Sakura snorted, slicing through another wall of bamboo with a chakra-infused burst of power. "I'll say."

"No," Shikamaru said, "I mean this whole situation in general." He frowned. "When has it ever been that our first hunch has been right? Or our first lead at all?"

"It's too easy," Kakashi agreed. "I smell a trap."

The rest of the journey sped by at the hand of Sakura's wild and erratic swordsmanship. The clearing was just as barren and just as quiet as before, and One just as lonely. He was already speaking when they arrived, eyes latched shut and yet somehow just as piercing.

"Naruto," Shikamaru said, calling out when he was within reasonable range. "Can you hear me?"

"Oh, thank God," One said, voice meandering at the telltale clip of their Seventh Hokage. "We were worried it was a fluke or something and we'd never hear you again."

"Well, I'm glad that doesn't appear to be the case," Kakashi said.

"This is all far too convenient," One said, and it took Kakashi a brief moment to realize that it had been Jiraiya of the Sannin, a voice he hadn't heard in over two decades, who spoke. "I'm sorry, Minato, but I just don't know if we can trust this."

"Funny," Shikamaru said, "we were thinking the same thing."

Silence. Kakashi assumed that they were discussing something amongst themselves on the other side.

"There's something you're not telling us," another voice said. Kakashi's heart flipped over in his chest. "Please. Tell us. We need to know."

"Is this a game?" Jiraiya said. "What are you playing at?"

"They're not talking to us," Shikamaru muttered under his breath, and Kakashi silently agreed.

"N-no!" One said, this time in a manner Kakashi was unfamiliar with. "Please, this... this is not a deception. I assure you. To assume of such from Lord First would be scandalous."

"Then what's going on?" Naruto said.

Kakashi felt movement behind him, and turned just in time to see Three, eyes white and lip quivering, stumble past.

"H-Hoshu?" she whispered. "Is that you?"

"Oh, child, would you look at that!" Hoshu said. "It would appear you have a doppelganger on the other side. Is that you, Three?"

She fell to her knees before her grandfather. "Hoshu?" she repeated.

Sakura furrowed her brow; reached out with a hand. "Three?"

Kakashi wasn't facing her, but he could sense the tears nonetheless.

"Hoshu," Three said, "you've been dead for ten years."

More silence. More questions. Kakashi looked at Shikamaru, Shikamaru looked at Kakashi. Sakura leaned down and rested a hand on Three's shoulder.

"We can go if you'd like," she said.

"No," Three said. "This is important."

"I'm not sure I get what's going on," Naruto said through One's lips.

"What the hell is happening?" Jiraiya said.

"Did you say 'dead', child?" Hoshu repeated.

"When my father passed," Three said. "You died when he did. Trying to save him."

Kakashi shared another look with Shikamaru. Sakura raised an eyebrow at the two of them, frowned, and leaned down on one knee beside the troubled girl.

"You don't have to talk about this if you don't want to," she said, voice calm. Kakashi blinked, and saw the flash of a young Sarada, crying at his doorstep, with a similar-looking Sakura leaning over her in much the same manner.

It was fitting, to say the least.

"This is amazing," Minato muttered from the other side. "Obito, any changes?"

Kakashi's heart lurched again. "Obito?"

"I don't see anything different," a new voice muttered. "Same as yesterday." A pause. "When are we going to see something happen? What's the point of all of this?"

"The two-bit terrorist is right," Jiraiya said. "Pardon my blatant and insistent skepticism, Minato, but I just don't see the benefit of something like this."

"Well, no," the Fourth Hokage said. Kakashi could almost make out the image of his late sensei standing next to him, hand over lips, brow furrowed in that way that Kushina would always make fun of. "We already learned something valuable - their bodies are still on the other side."

"That's a good point," Sakura said, crossing her arms. "I don't know how much longer I can keep you two in decent condition. It seems like every few hours you have violent seizures and send all of my equipment into mass disarray. Your bodies can't take that much strain for very long."

The other side of the connection fell silent in a surprised hush.

Shikamaru coughed. "Naruto. Are you still there?"

"Seizures?" Minato said. "That's interesting. Any idea as to what might be causing them?"

"Well, honestly?" Sakura sighed. "No. I have no clue."

"Strange," Jiraiya murmured.

"One moment," Minato said, and Kakashi turned when he heard Three yelp.

"Whoa!" Obito said from across the link at almost the same moment.

"I..." she said, pointing a finger to their right, "I saw him."

"You saw the Fourth Hokage?" Shikamaru asked. He looked at Kakashi; they shared another glance. "What did he look like?"

"Blond," Three murmured, twisting her hands into her shirt. "Wearing a white coat. Blue eyes."

She frowned. "He looked like an older version of the boy I fought in the ninja competition."

"Boruto," Sakura breathed.

"What's going on?" Minato said a moment later. "Did something happen?"

"When you Hiraishined back," Obito said, "the chakra exploded. It looked like lightning hit the tree."

"And Three saw you," Kakashi said.

"She _saw_ me?"

Three nodded.

"Three nodded," Kakashi relayed.

"Hang on a second," Minato said. "So when I Hiraishined back to the Leaf, you saw me?"

Kakashi opened his mouth to speak, but his old sensei beat him to the punch. "Is it something we can recreate?"

Another beat of silence.

Three gasped again. "He was there again!"

"What did you see, Three?" Minato asked. "What did you--"

One fell silent. For the first time since they had arrived, his shoulders sagged and his skin paled.

"G-grandfather?" Three blurted. She was at his side in a second, ghosting hands over his flesh. She looked over her shoulder, shot the three of them an anxious glance. "He's cold. Far too cold. I don't understand what is happening... what did they do to him?"

"Three," Sakura said, voice gentle like the drifting wind. "He passed out. Probably from overexertion. It can't be easy to maintain that kind of connection for that long, if that's what he's doing."

The girl opened her mouth, closed it, opened it again.

"We need to let him rest," Sakura said, cupping her shoulder and guiding her back to her feet. " _We_ need to rest. I'm sure the others will be back tomorrow, same as us."

"I want to help." Three furrowed her brow and cut daggers into the earth in front of her. "I want to."

"I know." Sakura stood, brushed off the dirt from her dress with her gloved hands. "We all do. That's why we're here, after all!"

On the way back down the mountain, Kakashi saw Three smile for the first time since they'd arrived.

* * *

 

Obito stalked across his rented room in Hoshu's home and waited for the sun to come up.

Three days had passed. Each morning they would climb the mountain on the back of his old sensei's coattails, and each evening they would return having accomplished nothing.

One had gone silent. Minato hit a wall. Everything had come to a screeching standstill; and the Leaf village party was becoming increasingly restless as the days wore on.

Morning number four began with the birth of the new day's sun, and Obito's patience broke.

His plan had failed. His father was patronizing. The entire world seemed to be laughing in his face.

What would Madara say now?

He seethed in his own mind, replaying the events that took place in the Hidden Mist village over and over like a broken tape. Naruto had taken him down without so much as a bead of sweat. He had failed.

No. It wasn't just that. Obito had failed so spectacularly that he could have just as well not lifted a finger at all and would have suffered the same fate. His action had been meaningless; his strength had been trivialized. He was made a pet; chained to Naruto with invisible rope, forced down a path that left him powerless.

He wanted them gone. Both the man that had done him in, and his whiny brat of a son.

One would speak. Obito would make sure of it. His plan may have failed, but his sanity would not.

* * *

 

"Alright, team," Minato said, voice far too chipper and far too tight, "let's make today productive. Take a book on chakra theory, and a book on transdimensionalism, and start digging."

"Are we not going up the mountain today?" Naruto asked, taking one look at the books stacked on Hoshu's dining table and paling. "Because... uhh... I'm not really sure I can be much help here, y'know."

"I already went up the mountain this morning before I started," Minato said, nursing a cup of coffee and turning the page on his increasingly protuberant notebook. "No change. We may as well not waste time and work here for the time being. Assuming that's okay with you, of course."

Hoshu jumped when Minato laid a hand across his shoulder, then smiled. "Oh! Well, I suppose it's not a bother. We have never had guests from other villages before."

"Maybe there's a seal we can use," Kushina asked, folding one leg over the other and tapping it mid-air to some unspoken tune.

"Why are you here again?" Jiraiya said, bumping into her as he walked past to grab a pair of books for himself.

"Can it, frog breath," she said, tripping him as he walked by. He recovered, just barely, and shot her a smirk. "Yeah, that's what I thought. I'm here because I _know_ Minato, and I _know_ he'll forget to eat if I don't remind him."

She looked over her shoulder at the man and raised an eyebrow. "Especially when he's like this."

Minato sniffed and looked up from his notes, eyes blank. "Huh?"

Kushina turned to Naruto. "See?"

Boruto laughed despite himself, and Kushina smiled all the same.

"Well, if you're gonna sit around and take up valuable book space, you may as well read something too," Jiraiya said, tossing her the books in his hands.

She caught them and scoffed. "Or we could use a seal," she said. "Probably."

"Probably not, actually," Minato murmured over the lip of his mug. He took a swig, set it aside. "That's not how this works. At least, not how it should work, if everything I've been reading is any indication."

"Alright, so what do we do?" Kushina said, tipping her chair back down onto all fours and leaping to her feet. "I don't exactly work best in this kinda environment."

"Neither do I," Naruto muttered.

“Let’s go outside,” Kushina chirped, pulling Boruto out of his seat as she meandered by. “No use taking up ‘valuable book space’.”

Footsteps approached.

“Lord Hoshu!”

The monk jumped in his chair.

Minato put his notes down and frowned. “Expecting company?”

The wicker door was cast aside in a hurried frenzy, and two robed men, bald as anyone else in the village and dressed much the same as Hoshu was, scrambled into the cramped den.

“Lord Hoshu,” one of the men said, panting. “Something’s wrong.”

“Speak,” Hoshu said, eyes wide. “What ails you?”

“It’s Lord First,” the other man said. “He’s dead.”

* * *

 

“He’s dead?” Shikamaru asked.

“It sure seems like it,” Sakura sighed, leaning over the man’s body. She flicked her wrists and the green medical chakra receded back into her skin. “His body went into shock. And judging from the state he’s currently in, I would say he’s been dead for a few hours already.”

“This happened last night?”

“Sooner, probably,” Sakura said, standing. She adjusted her clothes, crossed her arms.

“Now what?” Shikamaru said. “It’s not like we were making any progress anyways.”

“Now we have to tell the village their leader is dead,” Kakashi said. He turned a lazy eye on the body, then back down the mountain path they had hacked their way up once again. “And I’d be willing to bet we’ll be blamed for it.”

“Of course we will,” Shikamaru said. “Politics. Troublesome.”

* * *

Three’s heart sat in her throat.

She stood still, watched Hoshu shout and holler and pull at the air. She watched the congregation of monks make their way up through the jungle from Hoshu’s porch, could feel them assemble around the perimeter of the Great Tree like silent specters.  

“I never should have trusted you,” the bald man seethed, turning on the Leaf shinobi. “You were nothing but trouble the instant you arrived.”

“We had nothing to do with this,” Minato pressed for what felt like the thousandth time. “I promise you, this was _not our fault_.”

“And how should I trust you?” Hoshu said, getting in Minato’s face. “You have the power of a god, chained to you like a beast. But what happens when the chain breaks? What happens when your control fades, and you’re left with a wild, untamable power in your mortal hands?”

“Are you insinuating I am incapable of being a leader?” Minato said, raising an eyebrow.

Hoshu turned, pulled his robes tight with such force that his hood snapped against his neck and folded in an uneven angle against his back. “Come, Lady Third,” he bit through clenched teeth, striding past Three towards the door. “It is in our best interest to leave the presence of these uncouth heathens.”

Three’s stomach twisted in her gut. She leaned to her feet anyways, fought back the wave of lightheaded panic, fell sideways against the wall of the house.

“Child, please,” Hoshu sighed, tapping his foot at the door. “I don’t have time to deal with your theatrics now. We are in a state of disarray.”

Tunnel vision.

She saw their faces, saw their blond hair; one surprised, one resigned, one angry. She couldn’t tell which was which. She turned away, followed the blur of her mentor through the doorway and down into the jungle.

Hoshu was like a moving statue in front of her, gliding over the pressed earth pathways and through the silent city streets. All the boats had been called in; every civilian lined the edges of the village and watched her with quiet respect. They cut across the boardwalk, and Three looked up into the clouds.

The sky was blue and beautiful.

She couldn’t do it. She had a future, had a life she wanted to live. She refused to be chained to the earth for the rest of her life like a slave.

When Hoshu began the final march towards the monk’s chambers, Three bolted.

Her future was calling her, but she refused to call back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!! Next chapter will be the last, and should HOPEFULLY be out soon. Hang tight; I really appreciate your patience!  
>  \- Endo


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I split chapter 20 into 3 separate chapters. All three have been posted. Enjoy!

“You need to leave,” Minato said. “It’s not safe here anymore.”

Kushina opened her mouth, began to say something, then snapped her jaw shut like a cupboard and pouted. “Fine,” she said, gathering up the dishes she’d brought with her and moving to stand in the middle of the room. “You go ahead and get yourself killed out here by an angry mob. I’ll be sure to put in a good word for your replacement.”

Naruto snorted. “You’ll have to find her first.”

Kushina let out a confused, muffled “Huh?”, but before she could finish the thought Minato met her halfway and they both disappeared in a soundless flurry.

“Alright, what now?” Jiraiya said, peeking through the creaky wooden blinds in Hoshu’s home and down into the village below them. “Everyone’s lined up outside. I don’t get it.”

“It looks like some kind of ceremony,” Minato said, reappearing. “Their leader just died. It makes sense that they have a cultural tradition that dictates what they do next.”

“Is it just me,” Boruto said from the doorway, frowning, “or is the jungle browner than yesterday?”

Naruto made his way to his son’s side and took a look for himself. “Y’know, it sure looks like it.”

“We need to get back up to the mountaintop,” Minato said. “We were so close. I’m sure of it. There’s a chance that even though One died, we’ll still be able to figure something out.”

Naruto gave his father a skeptical look. “What about these people?”

“What about them?” Minato blinked.

“We can’t just come here, take advantage of whatever abilities they have, and then leave,” he said, shrugging. “That’s just not right.”

It wasn’t. Naruto didn’t need to reflect on his personal history to know that. He bit back the sour feeling in the back of his gut that sullied his opinion of his father, gripped his son by the shoulder in a show of solidarity, and watched the trees shift in the wind.

“Well, at the very least, we should definitely try to do something,” he said, not ignoring the way Boruto leaned into his touch.

“There’s a congregation of monks up there now,” Minato said. “We’ll have to wait until they clear out before we can really do much of anything.”

“Where’s Obito?” Jiraiya muttered, walking across the room and peering into the seating area attached to the opposite end of the kitchen. “Did he run off somewhere?”

“That’s a good question,” Minato asked.

“Here,” Obito said, voice thin and wiry, frayed like rope. He came around the corner of the house, ghosted past Minato, and sank into one of the empty chairs strewn around the table that had served as their base of operations. He stared at the wood graining with his lone, coal-black eye, and waited.

“What’s wrong?” Minato asked, blue eyes alight with fear. “Where were you?”

“He's dead," Obito mumbled. He grabbed at his shoulder, clutched at some phantom pain.

"What?" Minato reached out, made to grasp the boy's shoulder.

Obito shirked out of the touch with a hiss of air. "Just... go."

"You did something, didn't you," Jiraiya said, eyes steely and unforgiving. It wasn't a question.

"Someone's coming," Boruto said, pointing down the sloped pathway leading through the dying jungle.

Naruto peered through the door again, saw the outline of a white-robed monk marching up the hill. "It's Hoshu." Naruto grimaced. "He doesn't look too happy."

"I'm sure these are trying times for him," Minato said.

"Yeah, and who do you think caused it?" Jiraiya said, crossing his arms.

The sound of sandals on wood echoed through the tight-knit weave of the cleared forest around them, snuck through the open windows of Hoshu's cottage like cobras. They carried with them just as much venom, and when Hoshu himself burst through the door, ears beet red and brow furrowed further than Naruto had ever seen before, the entire congregation of Leaf shinobi flinched.

"All of you," Hoshu said calmly, steady like the eye of a storm. "Get out of my home."

Minato opened his mouth, stopped mid-breath, and instead bit his lip.

Naruto stepped forward. "We're sorry," he said. "If that matters for anything. We didn't want any of this to happen."

"Take your cursed souls," Hoshu said, "and leave this island before you taint another one of our kind with your foreign ideologies."

Minato had already begun gathering up his books and notes, disappearing intermittently to return them to what Naruto could only assume was some underground library bunker ten stories tall.

Hoshu stalked through to the other room, disappeared into his study, and didn't return.

"What does _that_ mean?" Boruto asked, after Hoshu slammed his wicker door shut.

"Taint _another_ one of their kind?" Minato said, reappearing with empty hands.

"Three," Naruto said, and thought of the distraught, panicked look of the child not twenty minutes prior. "She looked terrified. Why did she look terrified?"

"I have a sneaking suspicion," Minato said, "that there's some obscure village tradition Hoshu's not letting us in on."

* * *

 

“You have to _what?”_ Sakura said.

“It’s a village tradition,” Three said. She frowned. “I don’t see how this is an issue.”

“It’s an issue,” Sakura started, paused, then started again, “because it’s not fair. Not fair to you, or your childhood, or your village, or anybody else.” She huffed a breath, furrowed her brow. “What about your dreams? Don’t you want to be a ninja? That’s why you came to the Leaf in the first place, right?”

“Sakura,” Kakashi said. His voice was calm but powerful, like the breeze above a riptide. “This is their tradition. We have to respect it.”

“Well I’m not going to,” she said, standing straight. “As ranking medical officer on this mission, I determine that this…” she made a wild gesture at the tree, “ _procedure_ is unfit for human participation. I won’t allow it. I _can’t_ allow it.”

“It’s not your choice to make.”

Sakura gave him a pleading look – one packed with enough kindling to start a fire.

Kakashi stared at her right back, and after a few moments of silence where even the wind seemed to silence itself, Kakashi turned away. “Walk with me,” he said. It wasn’t an order; it was an invitation. He nodded to Shikamaru, who was watching the exchange with quiet complacency, and turned back towards the mountain path out of Three’s earshot.

“Kakashi-sensei,” Sakura said, once they rounded the corner and the bushes taller than either of them, “please tell me you understand this is wrong.”

“I know,” Kakashi said. “But that doesn’t mean we have any say in what happens here.”

Sakura frowned. “What if there’s another way? For her to fulfill this role?”

“So what if there is?”

She sighed. “That girl is a _child_ , sensei. She’s not any older than Sarada. She has a whole life ahead of her. She shouldn’t have to sacrifice herself for some sick, perverted, outdated village tradition.”

“Doesn’t she?” Kakashi said.

Sakura deflated, lowered herself to the floor, rested on an exposed root that was big enough to sit on.

“Let me ask you a question,” Kakashi said, taking a step forward. He walked a little further down the trail until he was eye level with her sitting and him standing. “What do you think will happen when Naruto dies?”

Sakura lurched up from her slouch, eyes wide and fierce. “What?” She growled. “Why would you say something like that—“

“What will happen when Naruto dies,” Kakashi said, “and the Leaf Village needs a new Jinchuuriki?”

“We don’t _need_ another Jinchuuriki,” Sakura grit out. “The tailed beasts are free. That was part of Naruto’s deal. He wouldn’t so easily go back on something as important to him as that.”

“If he’s dead, he won’t be around to make that decision,” Kakashi said, blunt as a dull razor, but still sharp enough to cut. “If the Nine-Tails goes rampant, which is a possibility, we have to be ready.”

Sakura stewed on her thoughts. “I really don’t see how this is relevant.”

“Tell me, Sakura,” he said. “What do you see when you look out into this forest?”

Sakura ran a hand through her hair, tilting her head to get it out of her eyes. “I don’t know, sensei. I’m not really in the mood for one of your cryptic life lessons.”

“Ahh, but they usually are cryptic for a reason,” Kakashi smiled.

With a huff, Sakura stood, dusted off the dirt on the back of her dress, and peeked over the wall of grass to look out towards the sea of jungle. “I see green,” she said. “Orange. Red. It looks like fall is coming.”

“But is it?” Kakashi asked. “Not only is it not the time of year for this kind of change, we’re in a jungle. Jungles don’t change leaves like the forests in the Leaf do.”

Sakura’s eyes widened.

“And on our way up here,” Kakashi continued. “We didn’t have to cut away at anything. The path was clear from yesterday.”

Sakura frowned, rubbed at her chin. “It’s like the jungle is frozen.”

“It’s like the jungle is _dying_ ,” Kakashi corrected. He looked back up the mountain towards the tree. Splotches of emptiness between the branches let the sunlight through, and the tree itself rattled with dry leaves in the wind. “Why do you think that is?”

“Oh god,” Sakura said. “It’s not like _that_ , is it?”

“I think it is.” Kakashi took a step back up the trail towards Shikamaru and Three and a devastating decision. He kicked away at the loose leaves that had gathered around his sandals. “Sakura, you should know that as Hokage, I was tasked with something I was not happy about.”

She said nothing. Kakashi continued. “Each year, at around the end of spring, I had to choose a new jinchuuriki. In case the worst case scenario happened.”

“Wait, late spring?” Sakura asked. She scowled, eyes wild. “Kakashi, those hospital records were supposed to be for census recording and that alone! That’s the only reason I gave them to you!”

“I made sure to check with the families of the child I chose, of course,” Kakashi continued. “Since Naruto was – _is_ such a star, they all said yes. Couldn’t help but jump at the opportunity to have the baby boy or girl share a list with someone as powerful and important to the Leaf as the Seventh Hokage, I suppose. And the jinchuuriki of the Nine-Tailed Fox are an exclusive enough group as it is.”

Sakura seethed. “What are you saying, sensei?”

“Every parent was the same. Every family was just as naïve as the last.” He ran a hand across the scar on his eye. “They didn’t know what Naruto had been through; didn’t understand the sacrifices he had to make. Being a jinchuuriki was never something Naruto asked for, but he took it in stride.

“He’s not going to live forever, Sakura,” Kakashi said. “I think he of all people understands that. And if something were to happen, and the Fox did do something dangerous after all…”

“You needed a backup plan,” Sakura said, voice quiet. She took a deep breath. “That makes sense. It’s awful, but it makes sense.”

He looked her in the eye, saw the fury and the passion of a fiery, doting mother. But he also saw the eyes of a young girl, no younger than Three herself, trying to make her way in a team full of impossibilities. Kakashi saw the eyes of a ninja, of a _medic_ , of someone who understood sacrifice in the eyes of morality.

“It wasn’t something I wanted to do,” Kakashi said quietly. “Believe me. But bad decisions have to be made sometimes.”

Sakura turned away stared off to some unseen place, and nodded. Her face was grim.

“That’s what this is.” Kakashi pointed up the hill. “That’s what _she_ is. She’s the village jinchuuriki. She’s the village Naruto, and the village replacement. She may not truly have a choice in the matter, but that’s not stopping her from tackling her future with a sense of pride.” He smiled. “She really is like Naruto in a lot of ways. Back when he was younger.”

Sakura’s jaw worked under her skin, but she simply sighed. “You’re right. Maybe that’s why this is difficult.”

“She made up her mind,” Kakashi said. She had been angry before, but now she looked tired and stressed and far more human than Kakashi had seen her in months. “It may have been a superficial decision, but it’s important that she take her destiny in her own hands. At least give her that, Sakura.”

“I’ll give it to her,” Sakura said, looking up the mountain, “but I’m afraid I’ll never get it back.”

* * *

 

“I’m going to go get my stuff,” Boruto said, pointing to the part of Hoshu’s house where they had slept, and walked out of the kitchen when his father nodded back.

This was entirely unlike him. He felt the palms of his hands tense up, felt them grow clammy and cold. Marching down the hallway towards Hoshu’s study was like walking into a den of hungry lions. He’d seen the man’s demeanor; he’d seen the man’s rage. It was understandable, sure, but anger so physical and untethered meant it would latch onto anyone and everyone that dared block its way.

Boruto clenched one of his sweaty palms into a fist, and rapped it against Hoshu’s door.

There was a moment – a horrible, sickening, gut-turning moment when Boruto’s confidence evaporated into dust and left him stranded in the dark hallway with nothing but his wide eyes and taut gut. He tasted copper on his tongue, slackened his jaw when he realized he was biting his lip, and used what little strength sat behind his jittery nerves to force himself still.

He heard a chair pull back from a desk, heard bare feet tap on wood.

The door slid open with a sigh, and Boruto looked up into the tired eyes of their host.

“Oh,” he said, “I thought you were one of the monks, come to fetch me.”

He turned, walked back into the room, and left the door open – an invitation.

“Close it behind you,” the monk said, after Boruto had crossed the threshold and Hoshu had thrown himself back into his chair.

Boruto did as he was told, stepped towards Hoshu’s desk, and realized, far too late, that he had no idea what he wanted to say.

“Well?” Hoshu asked, leaning back in his chair and rubbing at his eyes with a sigh. “What do you need?”

Boruto floundered, eyes darting across the room to try and find some sort of anchor that would remind him of what he came there for. He found it in a painting hung above the window – it was grey, and old, and folded in a few places, but Boruto recognized the figure behind the matted glass just the same.

“Three,” Boruto said, and turned his eyes back to Hoshu. “What did you mean back there? You said we tainted her?”

Hoshu furrowed his brow. “You will have to forgive me. I was acting without peace of mind and spoke out of line.”

“No,” Boruto said, taking a step forward. He couldn’t believe he was doing this: approaching a de facto village leader – _challenging_ him. “I want to know what you mean.”

“Three is…” Hoshu paused, “a difficult child to understand. She is headstrong, and curious, and wants to do right. But she is also afraid.”

Boruto blinked, and connected the dots. “She ran away again.”

Hoshu ran a hand across his bald head. “Nobody has been able to find her.”

“Really?”

“It seems she has begun to have cold feet,” Hoshu explained. “Unfortunate. Truly unfortunate.”

Boruto shuffled in place on Hoshu’s mat. “Uhh, why is it unfortunate?”

The monk gave him a glassy stare, then snapped his mouth shut. “Oh, my apologies; I forget that you are not from here.”

He stood, pushed aside his chair with far more grace than before, and beckoned Boruto to join him at the long, sweeping window at the back of the study.

The wooden shutters we cast aside with a dusty rattle, and the jungle came spilling in, sounds and smells and _heat_ cooking him like a tropical oven.

Hoshu leaned forward over the bookshelf in front of the window, paid no mind to the crumpling of scrolls under his weight, and took a deep breath. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”

Boruto took a hesitant step forward, maneuvered his sandals around some dislodged paper that had found its way onto the floor, and mimicked Hoshu’s action. “Yeah, it is,” he said truthfully.

“It’s worth protecting,” Hoshu said, biting his lip. “This village isn’t cut from the jungle; it’s made from it. We _are_ the jungle.”

He reached out, ran a hand over the waxy leaves of a plant that reached back. “This is our home. We are nothing without it.”

Boruto watched Hoshu take the leaf and pluck it from its branch. He brought it close; lowered it so Boruto could see. He pointed at a small yellow spot, no larger than a ryo coin. “Do you see this?”

“Yeah,” the blond said, raising an eyebrow. He leaned close, inspecting it. “It looks sick.”

“Indeed it does,” Hoshu said, voice tinged with something equal parts proud and sad. “This village is dying now, child. You can see it for miles.”

As if to emphasize his point, Hoshu turned and looked back out the window. Boruto followed his lead, and sure enough – the forests were turning red and orange and fading away. He had been right; it wasn’t just his imagination.

“It’s because of One,” he said, and it all made sense.

"Lord First is the anchor," Hoshu agreed. "He is what ties this village, and, indeed, this island, to the gods. He is what gives the forests their life, and what gives us the strength as a people to exist. He keeps us strong, keeps us safe, and keeps us aware."

Boruto turned, gave Hoshu a lopsided frown. "Keeps you aware?"

"Oh, yes," Hoshu chuckled. "As I said previously, all village decisions are sent through Lord First, and he is, naturally, our leader. But he has warned us of things, unprompted, many times in the past."

He frowned. "Although I must note that he did not warn us of you."

Boruto felt his mouth dry out, although he wasn't sure why. Perhaps it had something to do with the way Hoshu spoke; perhaps it was the way he glared out the window into the dense foliage like it was some sort of charging beast and Hoshu was its champion.

"Regardless," the monk sighed, "we are lost without his guidance. And it will only be so long before our village crumbles to dust around us."

A sudden thought came to Boruto like the crack of a widowmaker. "Have there been more than one... uhh... Ones?"

Hoshu stood a tad taller. "Indeed there have."

"What happened to them?"

"They became part of the trees themselves," Hoshu said, "but we do not forget them, nor do we take advantage of their sacrifices."

 _'Part of the trees,'_ Boruto thought, and the image of the tall, misshapen roots at the top of the mountain sprung to mind. He shuddered at the thought - each one of them had been a man at one point.

Hoshu licked his lips, taking a few long, sweeping steps around his desk and pulling a dusty bin off a shelf Boruto hadn't seen when he first walked in. He swept his way back, set the bin down on his desk with a quiet clatter, and pulled out a few old frames of glass.

"This," Hoshu said, "was Three's great grandfather - One's father." He held the glass painting in front of him, and Boruto took it with hesitant hands.

He saw a bald man, sitting tall, eyes closed under a tall tree. He looked young, from as much of the painting Boruto could decipher from the age and degradation, and the black moss that had grown across over half of One's body had barely climbed up his legs.

"What is that stuff?" he asked, pointing, before he could think.

"The tree," Hoshu blinked. "What else could it be?"

He took the plate back from Boruto and handed him another. "And this was the One before him."

Boruto knitted his eyebrows across his forehead, intrigued, and accepted the second painting.

It was a woman. Boruto's eyes opened in surprise.

"Is this a girl?" he asked, and turned to Hoshu. He looked again, just to be sure, and raised an eyebrow. There was no mistaking the sharp angle of the woman's jawline, or the gentle slope of her shoulder blades.

"Of course," Hoshu said. He threaded his hands into his robes and watched Boruto's face.

"She looks like Three," Boruto breathed.

A spark; a sudden realization.

Boruto turned on his heel and stepped forward into Hoshu's space. "Wait a second! Is this..." he took a breath, shook his head, "...is this what Three is supposed to do?"

“Yes, of course,” Hoshu said. “What did you think she was to become?”

Rage bubbled up in Boruto’s gut and crested like a crashing wave. “She trusts you.”

Hoshu frowned. “I beg your pardon?”

“She trusts you!” Boruto roared, clenching his fists at his side. “And you go and betray it like this?”

“Watch your tongue, boy,” Hoshu said, narrowing his eyes. “Three knew this was her fate. Three has known all along.”

“She thinks of you like a father,” Boruto said, shaking his head, voice waxing and waning like the quiver of a violin. “And the first thing you do instead of be there for her when her grandfather dies is tell her she’s about to become a _tree slave._ ”

“You are out of line,” Hoshu said, smashing a fist against his desk.

The door flew open behind them, and Naruto appeared in the empty frame.

“What are you doing?” he bit out, hand gripping indentations in the wood of the door. “You are supposed to be getting your stuff, and leaving our _gracious host_ alone.”

Boruto fought back a growl. “Nothing. I was just leaving.”

He tossed the painting of the girl onto Hoshu’s desk, and it landed on a pile of paper with a soft thump.

“Boruto,” Naruto began, but the boy just shot him a look, dipped through the doorway, and sidestepped him by going under his outstretched arm.

“I’m leaving,” Boruto said, and did just that.

* * *

 

“Are you _sure_ ,” Sakura said, “that this is something you want to do?”

She returned Kakashi’s reminding stare and turned down to Three, who stood before her, draped in white and surrounded by an order of monks several scores wide.

“I’m sure,” Three said, nodding. “This is my birthright. It is an honor to serve my village in this manner.”

The monks around them moved like a lazy tide, drifted through the clearing, and lined the perimeter of the clearing like a wall of angels. One’s body, just as stationary and just as quiet as before, sat across from them, tucked neatly behind the imposing frame of the large tree.

"Just checking," Sakura muttered, sighing.

Three smiled up at her. "Thank you, Sakura. Truly."

Kakashi moved forward and put a hand on Sakura's shoulder.

"We'll come to visit," Shikamaru said, for once without something hanging out of his mouth. He tipped his head in respect. "You and your village will always have an ally with the Hidden Leaf."

"It's time," one monk said, and directed Three away from them.

They walked the clearing, taking care to step over each twisted root, and Sakura watched with tense apprehension as the silence screamed in her ear and the minutes bore on. She traced an unmarked path, wound her way around the tree, searching for something.

"Here," Three said. She paused, turned, looked through a gap in the trees towards the far side of the island, away from the village. She nodded. "This is the spot."

The monk at her side nodded. "She has chosen." He stepped away, moved towards a gap in the others' formation and melted into the crowd.

The monks shuffled to the earth in one uniform motion and folded their robes in their laps.

Sakura frowned in surprise. She turned, looked down, and saw Kakashi following suit.

"Best to be polite," he whispered with a shrug.

Shikamaru and Sakura took seats beside him, and soon Three was the last one standing.

She paused, took a deep breath, turned in place. The village was behind them, compact and dainty but full of life and promise. The village's future was bright with Three in charge, Sakura was certain of it.

Three took an uneasy smile, closed her eyes, and turned back to the sea.

* * *

 

Boruto would find her. He knew he would. In fact, he knew exactly where she would be - despite not knowing himself how to get there.

He stopped running through the village after his lungs couldn't stand the hot, humid air a moment longer, and leaned over onto his knees to catch his breath once his sandals struck the wooden beams of the boardwalk they first arrived at. He turned his head, stared through his sweaty bangs at the sea, and winced as a ray of sunlight bounced off the flickering ocean and bit into his eye.

The village was quiet, but not dead - not like it had been in the morning. Boruto heaved a massive breath, stood tall, and marched to a stall vendor on the far side of the square, peering over the man's stack of mango with determination flowing through his blood like a disease.

"Excuse me," he said, startling the shopkeeper out of his reverie. "I need to know something. Can you help me?"

The flustered man panicked, looking over his shoulder to find someone else that Boruto could have been speaking to. Upon finding no one, he sighed, rubbed at his robes with his dirty fingers, and traded Boruto an uneasy smile.

"C-certainly, child." A pause. "Are you one of the... new ones?"

"New ones?" Boruto said, frowning. "What?"

"One that is," the shopkeeper elaborated, "not of our kind."

"Oh!" Boruto said. "Yeah, I'm from the Leaf Village." He looked around the square, saw all the eyes staring at him, and asked, "Do you know where Three's dad is buried?"

The vendor shrunk back like he had been slapped, and it was only then that Boruto realized that he probably should have worded the question less bluntly.

"The cemetery of the noble family is not for village visitation!" the man said, frowning down at him.

Boruto's eyes lit up like lanterns, and he winked back. "Didn't say anything about foreigners, though!"

* * *

 

It took three more inquiries with villagers on the streets before one child around his own age pointed toward the cemetery's general direction, and the sun was starting to set when Boruto finally stepped foot through the arched wooden gateway and found himself in the Hidden Sea Village's royal burial grounds.

It was remarkably overgrown, considering what Boruto had expected - but if it was as sacred as Boruto assumed it to be, given the reaction of the others in the Hidden Sea, it made sense.

Three saw him before he saw her.

"What are you doing here?" she asked, voice hollow, as he rounded another corner of prickly bushes and forced his way through some tall grass.

Boruto jumped, turned, and grinned. "I knew it! I knew I'd find you!"

Three grimaced, and curled in on herself even more. "You don't have to yell," she said.

"O-oh." Boruto winced. "Sorry. I forgot this was a cemetery."

He stared over at her, watched the way she sat huddled on the ground before a stone obelisk with a name carved into it so faint Boruto couldn't make out the characters. The cemetery was far quieter than anywhere else in the village, which Boruto guessed was either because of the village’s intense commitment to tradition, or because the quiet spot was why the cemetery was built there in the first place.

"I shouldn't have to do it," Three said out of the blue, eyes glossed over and staring at nothing. "I should have a choice."

Boruto's jubilation from finding her faded and left him only feeling guilty and empathetic. He frowned, walked over to her, and tossed himself onto the grass beside her. It bit at his back, but he paid it no mind. The pink-blue sky opened up before him, long strings of wispy clouds drifting through the air like festival lanterns.

He understood now why Three had come here.

"I don't want to," she continued, unmoved. "I want to fish like my father before me and have a family and do all of the things I was supposed to do." She sniffled. "The things I _wanted_ to do."

Boruto hummed. He reached forward, plucked at a weed, and began to work the leaves off the stem without thought.

"I know I'm being a coward," she said. "I know I am. But I don't know what else to be."

"You're not a coward."

Three blinked, looked over at Boruto properly for the first time since he'd arrived. "What?"

"I said," Boruto repeated, "you are _not_ a coward."

Three sighed through her nose. "And you know this how?"

"Because..."

Boruto froze mid-sentence. He had an answer, but couldn’t vocalize it. It was more a feeling than anything else.

So he told her as much. "It's just a gut feeling. I don't know you really all that well" -Three raised a hairless eyebrow at him- "or, really, at all, yeah, but..."

He sighed, tossed the weed aside, fell to his back. "I don't know! You just seem like a good person."

Three frowned, watched a light breeze pick up the discarded plant and carry it along the ground by an invisible leash.

“I feel like I wasted my life,” Three muttered.

“What?” Boruto said, surprised. “What do you mean by that?”

“I wanted to become a fisherman,” Three repeated. “I wanted to buy a boat and make an honest living for myself. Do what my father did when I was a child, and what my grandfather did before him.” She huffed. “Instead, I locked myself up in my cabin because I was scared. I never did anything.”

Boruto stayed silent.

“But now,” Three continued, “I’m out of time. I used it all up. I can’t become a fisherman. I can’t buy a boat.”

She sniffled. “I worry my father would not be proud of me.”

“Whoa,” Boruto interrupted, “what? You can’t possibly think that.”

“It’s what I believe.”

“Well, I don’t,” Boruto said. “Not at all.” He shrugged. “I think my dad is as dumb as they come, but I’m still proud of him.”

Three raised an eyebrow at him.

“It’s true,” Boruto said. He propped himself up with his hands. “He’s the leader of our village – kinda like what your grandfather is to yours. Well…” He frowned. “ _Was,_ technically, I guess.”

He ran his fingers through the dirt. “I don’t really think pride, or love, or any of that has anything to do with what you do. I do a lot of stupid stuff that gets me in trouble all the time, but my dad still loves me. And he tells me he’s proud of me so much it makes me sick.” He snickered. “It’s just a thing dads do.”

"You really think so?"

"Yeah!" Boruto smiled. He turned, looked at the monument next to them. "We’re both in kinda weird situations with our parents, so I know what you’re feeling right now. At least a little.”

A pause. “I think your dad would've been proud of you." Boruto shuffled upright, carefully pulled himself to his feet. "I think that's all that really matters, right?"

Three watched him push his hands into his pockets, watched him saunter out of the cemetery with a quiet smile on his lips.

"Wait!" she called out, standing, and Boruto paused.

Three took a deep breath. "Wait for me," she said.

So he did.

* * *

 

“Is there something you can do?” Hinata asked.

Gaara murmured in thought, cupped the bottom of his chin with his finger. “I can try.”

The hospital hummed around them, but Boruto and Naruto’s occupied beds were as silent as a hushed whisper. Hinata turned when the door to their room opened, and a trio of staff marched in.

“Ma’am,” one of the nurses said, handing Hinata a clipboard full of paper with notes scrawled across them in hasty red ink, “here’s the report you requested from the chief nurse on staff.”

She accepted the paperwork with a nod, flipped through the first five pages and shook her head.

Gaara slowly stepped aside and let the other two medic ninja do their jobs. He looked at Hinata’s clipboard. “Will that suffice?”

“I think so,” she said, and tore off a pair of papers from the top of the stack. The clipboard protested with a loud crack, but she paid it no mind. “Do you have a pen I can borrow?”

A passing nurse stuck one out for her as he passed, and Hinata took it with a blink of surprise.

“Thank you,” she said.

“A shame, really,” Gaara said, “that they are out of cellular reception.”

“It’s understandable,” Hinata said, scrawling out a note in the margins with her neat, pennywise handwriting. “They are a long way from home, after all.”

“Too far for my sand,” he said, frowning. “I may have to call in a favor.”

“Ask on Naruto’s behalf,” Hinata said, folding the papers in two and handing them over. “He has enough favors to call on to start a small army.”

Gaara cracked a sliver of a smile. “Indeed he does.” He accepted the note.

Hinata sighed, sank back down into the chair at her husband’s side, and ran her hand down his arm until her fingers were locked with his.

“How much longer,” Gaara said, “do you think this will go on for?”

Hinata’s smile was a farce. “Not for much longer. At least I hope not for much longer.”

Gaara nodded; a minute twitch at the neck. “I will do whatever I can,” he said, and took measured steps as he left the room.

Hinata believed him.

* * *

 

“What happened?” Jiraiya asked. He cocked an eyebrow, watched Naruto slog back into the room.

“He ran off,” Naruto huffed. He threw himself down into the chair next to Jiraiya’s. “Again.”

“Seems to be all the rage today,” Minato said, cupping his hands over his notebook and leaning forward in his seat. “Any idea where he went?”

“He could be anywhere,” Naruto said. “He was talking to Hoshu when I found him.”

“Hoshu?” Minato said, eyes widening a sliver. “Really. That’s…”

“Entirely unlike him?” Naruto finished. “Yeah. You’re telling me. He picks now of all times during this trip to get a rebellious streak.”

“Speaking of rebellious streaks,” Jiraiya said, and nodded to the corner where Obito sat, head resting on the tabletop and shoulders slumped.

The boy stirred at the sudden quiet, raised his forehead, swiped away the piece of paper that stuck to his skin, and frowned. “What?” When nobody answered, he slid back in his chair. “Why are you all staring at me?”

“Because you’re acting suspicious,” Minato said. “Where were you this morning?”

“Walking,” Obito said, word shielded and delicate like a late summer flower. “Through the woods.”

"The woods?" Naruto asked, raising an eyebrow.

"The woods," Obito repeated. His posture tightened.

Naruto didn't know Obito. He understood the boy, for certain, but there was still something underneath the surface, something /cryptic/, that left Naruto's mind blanking and worries ringing.

He heard a clamor outside, looked through the open window to see a group of white-robed monks meander by.

His eyes widened.

"Obito," he groaned, running his hand through his hair. "You didn't. Please tell me you didn't."

"Didn't what?" Jiraiya asked, raising his voice and sitting up in his chair. "What's going on?"

"It wasn't something I did on purpose," Obito bit out through clenched teeth. "He just... died."

Minato gasped. "Oh no..."

"What happened?" Naruto asked. He narrowed his eyes. "We need to know what happened."

"What difference does it make?" Obito said, nostrils flaring. "He's dead anyways! Nothing is going to change that!"

"What you did," Naruto said, choosing each word very carefully so as not to lose his edge, "may have cost us our only chance of getting home. You don't need any other reason to tell us than that."

Silence.

"Obito," Minato said. Naruto perked up at the commandeering tone. "Explain. /Now./"

The Uchiha's eye darted from shinobi to shinobi. He was afraid, Naruto could tell by the way his pupils dilated and his eyebrows quivered.

Finally, Obito sank in on himself, exhausted. "I went to try and get him to talk again last night. I thought he might if it was just me." A pause. "I touched him."

"Why?" Jiraiya asked, shaking his head, jaw slackened. "Why on /earth/ would you do that?"

"I don't know!" Obito yelled. He slammed his fists into the table. Minato's notes rattled. "I don't know, okay? I just did it! I didn't realize anything bad would happen! I just..." He shook, grit his teeth together. "I just..."

"Alright," Naruto said, voice soft. "That's enough."

Minato sunk into his chair, folded in on himself, held his forehead with his hand.

"I'm sorry," he muttered.

"What?" Naruto asked.

"I'm sorry I asked to bring him along," Minato said, voice level.

The Uchiha froze in Naruto's peripheral vision.

"It's not your fault," Naruto said to his father. He turned away, leaned across the table towards Obito. "And yes, while you may have caused this, Obito, I'm not angry at you."

"You're not?"

"No." He shot the boy a small smile. "Accidents happen."

Obito's eyes widened, and he stared at the pile of papers in front of him. "Oh," he said.

"Seriously?" Jiraiya gaped. "He kills a /head of state/ and you're letting him off easy?"

"Yes," Naruto said, "because it's not my decision to make." He pointed at Minato, who had slid back in his chair with a sigh. "I'm not the Hokage here, after all."

"We'll talk when we get home," Minato muttered, shooting Obito a tired frown.

"That being said," Naruto began, rising to his feet again, "don't run off like that again. It's not just Minato and the reputation of the Leaf that's on the line. We're all in this together."

Minato nodded. "Agreed. I think it's in everyone's best interests, including the Hidden Sea's, if we can get you and Boruto home as soon as possible."

"Speaking of running off," Naruto sighed, shaking his head. "That boy. I don't know where he gets it from."

"I have some idea," Minato said, and if it hadn't been so true, Naruto would have laughed.

* * *

 

Boruto was walking ahead, mighty proud of himself and confident that he'd done something good for a change when Three rushed past him, grabbed his arm, and dragged him off down a side road.

"Come on," she said, and it wasn't a request.

The village around them settled in for the night, windows shuttered and lights dimmed. The streets were quiet at night in the Hidden Sea, but they were also bright; the moonlight bled through the humid air like paint dripping across canvas and stained the roads with the shadows from the trees. The island came to life in an entirely different manner once the sun set, and as Three pulled him down a gravel slope towards an abandoned dock on the coast, Boruto realized how safe he felt.

"What are you doing?" Boruto asked, and watched as Three began to tug at the mooring lines of a splintery-looking fishing boat.

"Get in," she said, nodding over her shoulder. When Boruto frowned at her and stood his ground, she turned from her work and gave him a microscopic smile. "Please?"

"Why do I get the feeling you're going to float me out to sea and leave me there," Boruto muttered, and Three laughed.

"What, afraid of a little open ocean?" she taunted. Boruto flustered.

"N-no!" he said, crossing his arms over his chest. "I just... am not a very good swimmer, y'know."

Three untied the boat and it snapped away from the dock when she kicked at it, front end rotating out towards the sea. She climbed aboard, and Boruto hesitated only slightly before he swung a leg over the edge of the boat and leaned into it.

He stumbled in, stuck his hands out to keep himself from falling into the water as the boat shook and swayed.

Three smiled at him. "Sit down," she said. "The boat will rock less if you do."

The ocean current pulled them out to sea like a toddler tugging at her mother, and once the dock was no more than the size of a matchstick on the island's coast and the Hidden Sea came into full view for the first time, Boruto felt like it was trying to show him something.

"It's so small," he realized. "The island."

The forest of trees dissolved into a thick, indistinguishable blob of green, and Boruto could see the splattering of wooden wicker houses and village streets dotting up the mountain. Even from as far out as they were, he could still make out the massive tree at the highest point of the mountain.

"That's where I'll be," Three said, as though she had been following his gaze. "That's where I'll be until I die."

Boruto's eyes widened. "You mean you'll be stuck there? You can't even get up and leave every now and then?"

"Forever," Three sighed. "That is what each One does. They become One with the trees, and the forest, and the village. It requires sacrifice and strength of character, for the job is great."

She found a coil of rope at the bottom of the boat, tied it to the edge, and tossed the anchor at the other end into the water.

The sea quieted. Three pursed her lips; sighed.

"I don't think I’m ready.”

Boruto felt like she dumped a great deal of her shouldered stress overboard alongside the anchor.

He chewed on his words for a moment, leaned to the side and watched the ocean waves lap at the boat beneath him. The moonlight cast bizarre shadows over the water, and he watched the way his reflection twisted and folded in on itself from the surface of the murky black sea.

“I don’t think I’d be either,” Boruto muttered.

Three watched him. “Really?”

“Yeah.” He shifted in the boat, folded his hands under his thighs and leaned from side to side with the boat. “Dealing with stuff like that would be hard on anyone.”

A thought. “Do you think your grandfather was afraid at first?” Boruto asked.

“That,” Three said slowly, “I do not know.”

Boruto shrugged. “I dunno. I would be scared too if it were me. I know my dad would probably be scared.” He tilted his head to the side. “Probably even Hoshu.”

Three went silent.

They were caught in an ocean current; the slow, meandering pace of the water’s pull dragged them off to the side and around the other end of the mountain, towards the boardwalk.

“This boat was my father’s,” Three murmured, once the dim lights of the gas lanterns dangling above the village center came into a dull focus. “He used to use this to fish. He earned all of his money by fishing with this boat.”

She bit her lip. “Everything I have now – my home, my food, my good graces… all of it was my father’s.”

Boruto smiled. “Ahh, see! I was right!”

Three frowned at him. “I’m sorry?”

“Do you really think he would leave all of that behind for you for no reason?” Boruto leaned back in his seat. “Nah. He gave you that stuff because he loved you and wanted you to be happy.”

“Was I happy, though?” Three asked.

Boruto raised an eyebrow at her. “I dunno. Were you?”

“I guess,” Three said, smiling, “I guess I was.”

* * *

“Where the hell is he,” Naruto muttered, pacing. “Of all the days… of all the times…”

“Naruto,” Minato said, raising his arm gently, “you should sit down. You’re wearing a hole in the floor.”

“He’ll be back soon,” Jiraiya said, yawning. He kicked his feet up onto the tabletop and threaded his fingers together behind his head. “In the meantime, I’m going to take a nap. It’s getting late.”

“Which is why I’m worried.” Naruto sighed. “I’m going to speak with Hoshu and ask him to reconsider. I don’t want to be a burden, but I also don’t want to leave when Boruto isn’t around.”

“He’s what?”

Naruto blinked, looked at Hoshu, who was standing in the doorway to the living area with his arms threaded through his sleeves.

“He ran off,” Naruto said, running his hand through his hair. “Back when he was talking to you.”

“Hmph,” Hoshu said. He stepped through the room, made his way to the kitchen. “Would you care for some tea?” He asked, pulling a weathered kettle down from the rack.

“Please,” Minato said. He folded his book, stacked it atop the rest, and watched Hoshu move about like a stilted ballroom dancer. “Hoshu, would you mind telling us what’s wrong?”

The monk froze for a moment, then continued shuffling about. “I’m not sure there’s anything to tell. Nothing is wrong. At least, nothing significant.”

Naruto blinked. “Really?”

Hoshu sighed, and leaned his hip against the countertop. “I admit that I was… hasty to jump to conclusions earlier. I was rude, and I apologize.” He worried the edge of his lip with his teeth, stared at the floor for a moment.

His eyes met Naruto’s, then Minato’s, then Jiraiya’s. “This is nothing out of the ordinary. Three is a child, for certain, so this is more difficult for her than the others, but…”

“The others?” Naruto asked.

“The other Ones,” Hoshu answered. “The Ones that came before the man who passed this morning.” He frowned. “This is a rite of passage for Ones-to-be. Each has a moment of denial, and then a moment of acceptance. It may not be written tradition, but it is tradition nonetheless.”

“You’re saying,” Minato started, “that Three running off was expected?”

“Oh, of course,” Hoshu nodded. “Although I will admit that your young one following her was unexpected.”

“Is it bad that he went with her?” Naruto asked. He felt a bubble of concern rise in his gut.

“No,” Hoshu smiled. “Three is more fiery and independent. She will take time to come to a decision, and I do fear it will be too much. The village will suffer for it greatly.”

“And Boruto?”

The front steps struggled under the weight of heavy footsteps, and the ninja turned in unison to the doorway with mild intrigue.

“She’s made up her mind,” Boruto panted, leaning a hand across the doorframe, bent over his knees. “She’s… made up her mind.”

Hoshu’s eyes widened. “Three?”

Boruto nodded. He looked up, met Hoshu’s stare with his own. “She’s waiting for you now. On top of the mountain.”


	21. Chapter 21

The first thing Three noticed was the way the colors changed.

It all hit her at once. The sights and the smells and the sensations - everything compounded on itself. She could feel a bird perching on a branch a mile away, could sense the schools of fish weaving in and out of undersea caves that nobody ever knew even existed. She felt each footstep, each twitch of the wind in the leaves of the trees, could feel the heat and warmth from the sun just as much as she could feel the gentle hum of the earth beneath her.

Then came the others. They were like whispers in her ears, like a thousand voices collapsing into one. She could feel the world, but she could also feel something else, and it sent a shiver through her spine and into the ground.

She felt the same sensation hundreds of thousands of times over.

She opened her eyes. Shadows walked across the clearing before her, swirling in a roaring tide of indistinguishable voices. A blitz of panic rumbled through her chest as she realized she was alone now - alone in a sea of strangers - but then she felt the same fear through the tree and somehow, _some way_ , it calmed her.

Focus proved difficult, but manageable. She remembered her home, remembered the trees and the sea and the ocean breeze in the late fall that came in from the south and brought with it the scents of faraway lands. The brine, the foam, the quiet hiss of waves as they lapped at the bottoms of the piers during the midday rush. Each thought cut through the thicket of specters, pulled apart the shadows until all that remained was Hoshu, a crowd of monks, and the three blond men.

The colors!

She opened her eyes wider. The trees came through of the shadows, burst through the fog like the sun breaching monsoon clouds. Reds and golds and silvers and greys - the jungle swallowed up the wounds right in front of her, healing itself as she watched.

Three could feel each breath of the forest, each vine tendril and dangling branch and sunstarved stalk of bamboo buried deep beneath the foliage. The same awe, the same _reverence_ flowed through her from countless other minds, each experiencing the world through their own pairs of eyes.

It all made sense. Everything made sense.

The voices, the conversations, the strange manner in which her grandfather lived, speaking in bizarre riddles and tongues. Before, she thought him mad – but now, with hundreds upon hundreds of other Threes from hundreds upon hundreds of parallel realities reaching the same conclusion at the same moment, she understood.

He wasn’t rambling. He was _talking_. Communicating with other realms. When he spoke to no one, smiled at an empty space, he wasn’t doing so out of some patronizing, twisted self-indulgence. When he looked Three in the eye, told her something foul and terrible that made her heart stop and soul ice over, it wasn’t meant for her.

One wasn’t crazy. One was _connected_.

All ten thousand voices, linked together in one mind.

She looked out across the clearing and down to the sea. She could see the docks from there, could see the place where she had haphazardly tied the fishing boat from the previous night’s excursion back to the pier and left it spinning in lazy circles as the tide rolled in.

She expected she’d feel sad; expected she’d be trapped and locked away and unendingly claustrophobic. But instead, with the comforting hum of a million minds alongside her own, she felt _free._

The forest whispered to a halt, damage repaired and canopy healthy and green. She smiled.

The world _lived_.

* * *

 

“Sakura,” Kakashi said, “we really should be going.”

“We’re _not_ finished here yet though,” she replied. “I don’t want to leave. Not yet.”

Kakashi stood still. The trees swayed in the breeze. Three’s body, silent and unmoving, sat amongst the roots in their periphery.

“Sakura, the village needs us.” He looked her in the eye. “ _Both_ of us.”

“Yeah?” Sakura shrugged. “Well, the village needs Naruto, too. And Boruto. _Hinata_ needs them, if anything else.”

She turned away, looked back out at the seascape that stretched forward from the gap in the trees before them, and traced the place on the horizon where ocean and sky met in a blur of clouds and humidity and distance.

“You go,” she finally said. “I’ll stay here. Maybe something will happen.”

Kakashi raised an eyebrow. “How will you get home?”

With a shrug, Sakura turned back to the tree, and ran a chakra-infused hand down the trunk. “I don’t know. Maybe you can send someone back in a few days to get me?”

She knew it was fruitless; she had performed the same diagnostic jutsu dozens of times over the course of the previous week. First it was One, then it was Three, then it was the tree itself and anything else that may have held some sort of clue.

“Is that actually working?” Kakashi asked, as if having read her mind.

She sighed. “No,” she answered honestly, shifting back to her feet and ignoring the way her knees popped in protest. “I remember our conversation with the others through the link and they had mentioned something about chakra appearing and disappearing, but…”

“I wish I still had my Sharingan,” Kakashi muttered.

“No you don’t,” Sakura said with a small smile.

Kakashi shrugged. “Yeah, you’re right.”

“What about Shikamaru?” Sakura asked, turning away and pulling a pair of green field gloves back on her hands. “What’s he doing?”

“He’s talking to the locals now,” Kakashi said. “We are trying to work out some sort of peace agreement, but apparently politics somewhere as isolated as this island is just as frustrating as it is in the Leaf.”

“Would he be interested in staying—”

Sakura’s pocket vibrated.

She frowned. “That’s odd. I don’t have cell reception here.”

She pulled her phone from her pocket, fussed with the screen for a moment and frowned.

-

**LAND OF LIGHTNING**  
HIDDEN CLOUD VILLAGE, DEPARTMENT OF INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS  
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

RELAYED VIA SATELLITE  
MESSAGE IS AS FOLLOWS:

Naruto and Boruto seizures increasing daily; have stopped today and yesterday but nurses worry that it will cause damage if they continue. Staff notes attached. -HU

-

She waited a moment, and her phone vibrated again as a photograph of several documents appeared on her screen.

“A satellite message?” Sakura frowned. “I thought the Hidden Cloud decommissioned their satellite after the incident with the moon?”

“Something to worry about later,” Kakashi sighed. “What does it say?”

“Their seizures are getting worse,” Sakura said. “That’s was I was afraid of. After a certain point, the body can’t take that much strain and things start to… go wrong.”

“What can we do?”

“Nothing,” Sakura sighed. “Without a way to talk to the others, there’s not much I can do at this point.”

Three’s eyes shot open. She turned her head, looked Sakura right in the eye.

“You need to talk to them again?” she asked. “I might be able to help.”

* * *

 

"Look!" Hoshu cried. The monks murmured amongst themselves, spinning in circles. "The trees are growing again!"

Boruto watched the canopies. “Yeah, they are!”

Minato reappeared beside him, fresh notebook in hand, and looked at Naruto. “This is interesting.”

“Do you think Three had anything to do with it?” Naruto asked.

“I don’t doubt it.”

Hoshu took several gallivanting steps around the clearing, lifting leaves with his hands and smiling like a child. “It worked. It worked!”

“Does it not usually?” Minato frowned.

“Oh, yes, of course,” Hoshu scoffed. “But sometimes, there is an… adjustment period.”

He smiled. Three sat before them, stationary, legs crossed and eyes closed and arms resting carefully in the confines of her lap. “It looks as though that won’t be necessary this time around.”

“Well, that’s good to hear,” Minato said.

They stood in silence, watched as the monks scattered into the woods for one reason or another. Boruto didn’t understand them; but like most things in the Hidden Sea, strange rituals seemed to be quite the normal occurrence.

“So what now?” he asked his father once Hoshu announced he needed to leave in order to spread the good news.

“I have no idea,” Naruto said. He twisted his lips. “We wait, I suppose.”

Minato chewed at his lip, and Boruto watched him mull over his thoughts.

“If you have to,” his grandfather said, voice slow and careful, “you can stay in the Leaf. I’ll make the necessary arrangements.”

Naruto turned, eyes wide, and let the smallest of smiles bloom on his face. “Thanks, Dad. I appreciate that. It means a lot.”

“Not so fast,” a voice muttered from beneath them.

Boruto started. He stole a glance at Three, flinched in surprise when he saw her staring back at him.

“Did she just speak?” Naruto asked.

“It’s difficult,” Three continued, meeting Naruto’s eye, “but I’m trying.”

“Trying to what?” Minato asked.

“To put you in contact again,” she said. Her brow stitched up across her forehead in concentration.

Boruto couldn’t breathe.

“Did you know,” Three asked, frowning, eyes closed, “that there are hundreds of versions of you, all stuck out of place for the same reason?”

“Hundreds of versions of us?” Naruto asked, eyes wide. “What?”

“Yes,” Three said. “Hundreds. All in the same predicament, all here waiting on me to make the right match. You each have your own home worlds, and I do not want to accidentally send you to the wrong one.”

Minato opened his book and began to furiously scribble away. “Hundreds, you say? How do you know? What’s going on?” He paused, leaned forwards toward her. “Tell me what you see. I need to know.”

Three smiled. “I… don’t know. It’s hard to explain.” She winced, but her grin didn’t break. “It’s also quite difficult when I am having the same conversation with you in thousands of different realms. Except each one of you is asking different questions.”

Minato blinked in surprise, then wrote that down too.

“Fascinating,” he muttered. “The likelihood of encountering something like this in the field is…”

“Impossible,” Three copied, speaking at the same time as him. “Yes.”

Boruto’s gut bubbled in anticipation. This was it. Everything came down to one last conversation; one last breakthrough and they would be _home_.

He could hardly remember the last time he missed his mother this much.

“I understand now,” Three said. “I understand what happened.”

“Oh?” Naruto asked.

“It was during your ninja exams,” Three said. She paused, raised an eyebrow, and smiled. “Chuunin Exams, I’m being told. It was purely accidental, but…”

Naruto fidgeted. “But?”

“But I’m still sorry,” Three said, quiet and soft and far too self-inflicting. “It was my fault. Not all universes are the same; in some, I became One far sooner than others. The other versions of me – the ones already connected to the Great Tree – we are all still connected in some way, regardless of where we are in our lives.”

“So you’re saying,” Naruto frowned, “that your strange time-warpy powers happened because other versions of you that were already stuck to the tree influenced you?”

“They didn’t influence me, so much as I lost restraint,” Three said. “It’s… rather difficult to keep yourself in control in trying times such as those.”

Naruto’s face steeled. “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, I understand that.”

“I wonder if this happens with every new One,” Minato muttered. “I wonder how many villagers here are actually from a different world, they just didn’t realize it.”

“It probably happens a lot,” Naruto said. “But when your community is so small…”

“This was the first time a Hidden Sea villager had left the island,” Minato said, nodding. “When this incident happened, it was hard to miss. Especially considering how vastly different our worlds are.”

“It isn’t just that, though,” she continued. “My grandfather… none of what he did was accidental.”

Minato looked across the clearing at the man’s untouched body. The strange black moss had grown over most of his skin, and it left him looking like a stationary shadow.

“He knew he would die,” Three said. She closed her eyes. “He knew what would happen. He was helping you on purpose, because he understood what was at stake.”

“What do you mean by that?” Naruto asked.

Three lurched in her spot on the ground, spine arching and lungs struggling to gulp down a breath of air.

“I got it!” she yelled, smiling. “I found them!”

Minato scribbled more notes in shorthand in his book.

“Really?” Naruto asked. “Sakura? Kakashi? Are you there?”

“They… say they are well,” Three replied. “They are asking if you are okay.”

“We are, yeah,” Naruto smiled. “What’s going on? What’s new? Any developments?”

Three paused for a moment, scrunched up her nose in thought. “They are saying that your original bodies, in your original world, are sick.” She tilted her head, as if to better hear a silent voice. “No, not sick – but in dire straits.”

She looked Naruto in the eye. “Seizures. Happening daily. They have stopped more recently, and Sakura is unsure as to why.”

“Stopped?” Minato frowned. “I wonder why.”

“What have we been doing the past few days that’s different?” Boruto asked, rubbing a finger along a smudge of dirt hidden beneath his chin.

Minato’s eyes widened.

“Hiraishin,” he said.

* * *

 

“I hope they got the message,” Hinata said to an empty room. She rubbed Boruto’s hand.

* * *

 

“It’s the only explanation,” Minato said, scrambling through pages in his book, searching for a lost note. “Yes, here it is!”

“What is it?”

“I’ve been keeping concise notes of when and where we’ve been since we arrived,” Minato said.

Naruto shot him a blank stare.

Minato shrugged. “Old habits from my ANBU days. Regardless, based on this schedule, I have an outline of exactly where we’ve been and when. And considering  we’ve used my Hiraishin to get around…”

“We have something to compare it to,” Naruto finished, snapping focused. “Does Sakura have a log of when our seizures happened?” He asked Three.

Three was silent, as if waiting for a response from the other end. It was frustrating; like a drawn-out game of Telephone, but Boruto wasn’t upset. Instead, it seemed to raise the stakes even higher, and sent his heart stumbling over itself in his chest in excitement.

“Yes,” Three said with a smile.

“Alright,” Minato said. “The most recent Hiraishin jump I have here, not including today’s to get up the mountain, was two days ago, at approximately… seven o’clock in the evening.”

A pause. Three shook her head. “Not on Sakura’s list,” she said.

“Okay…” Minato muttered, flipping around some more. “Alright. What about the day before, at around noon?”

Three nodded. “She’s looking now.”

She blinked. “Eleven fifty-six?” she asked, looking at Minato.

“Yes!” Minato shouted. He spun in a circle. “Yes! That’s right!”

“Alright, what does that mean now?” Naruto asked, skittish, eyes wide and hopeful.

“Sakura says that every time you have a seizure,” Three said, “it seems like you wake up for a moment. But only for a moment.”

Minato froze.

“What is it?” Naruto asked. “Dad?”

“Does the log you have, Sakura, have reports of how bad the seizures were at each time?” the Fourth Hokage asked. “If so, what’s the worst one to date that’s been recorded?”

“The worst?” Three said. “It would appear to be one large event that occurred a week ago.”

Minato snapped. He turned, grinned at Naruto. “That’s when we first arrived.”

Boruto’s heart spun.

A distant memory, once thought a dream, bubbled up across the surface of his mind like a sunken ship drudged up from the depths of a murky lagoon.

He saw a hospital room, an army of nurses…

His mother.

“I saw it,” he breathed. “I saw Mom. When we first got here.”

Minato was silent again. Boruto could practically see the gears turning in the man’s head, could see the plan forming letter by letter across some imaginary page.

“I really hope the Tsuchikage doesn’t mind this,” he muttered, then stretched his arm out to the other two blondes. “I have an idea, and as long as I don’t accidentally start a war by appearing in another Kage’s office unannounced, it might prove a point.”

Boruto took Minato’s hand without question, but Naruto hesitated.

“It’s the furthest Hiraishin tag I have from here,” Minato explained. “If there’s a distance component, this will tell me.”

“Alright,” he finally agreed, and the moment his palm slid into Minato’s, the world went black and everything came into focus.

* * *

 

“Help me hold him down!”

The hospital erupted into chaos, and Hinata could only stand back in horror as her recurring nightmare struck once more.

The wailing of the alarms, the cacophony of shouting nurses and screaming machines… she let it all soak through her, weave around her like a smoothed stone in the pool of a gentle river stream.

The sounds stopped, but she could no longer tell if it was because she was fainting again or if it was because her heart couldn’t take it any longer.

Nurses swarmed past her, latching onto Naruto’s arms and Boruto’s legs and forcing them back into the beds. They zoomed by like the starry skies in the faraway, unoccupied lands east of the Land of Tea. Hinata swore she saw trails of their movement, echoes that forced her sluggish mind to remember to think, to feel, to _breathe._

Another nurse shot by with iron chains, and it was only with the sound of the metal linking together around their wrists and ankles that Hinata noticed she was walking towards them, too.

She bent over Boruto, stared into his open eyes, and the world went silent again.

Electric blue, as blue as the day he was born.

They turned on her.

“Mom?” Boruto whispered, voice like shattered glass in the enrapturing silence.

And then he was gone again.

* * *

 

They reappeared in the clearing before Three sweaty, wide-eyed, and with thundering hearts.

“I saw it,” Naruto said, pale-faced and clammy.

“Me too,” Boruto exhaled.

Three coughed, leaning over her chest as she heaved lungsful of air through her gaping mouth. “I felt it,” she said. “You saw it, but I felt it.”

“You did?” Minato asked, wondering. He turned to Naruto. “Do you think that would work if we did it enough times?”

“No,” Three said. “I see.” She gulped. “I’m the tether.”

“What?” Naruto asked.

“I’m what’s holding you back,” she said. “This whole time, I’ve been what’s forcing you to stay here. And I hadn’t even realized it.”

“What?” Boruto asked.

“I… wanted you around,” Three said, and him a simple smile. “And I’m glad I did.”

She went silent, her breathing steady like the low hum of a faraway storm. Boruto’s head went light.

“Try it now,” she told Minato, and they disappeared again.

* * *

 

More lights.

More sound.

More panic and indecision and sobbing that Hinata wasn’t quite sure was her own until she saw the stains of tears on the sheets beneath her face.

* * *

 

Minato returned to the clearing alone. His surprise faded away and left him laughing, amazed, and far too drunk on the moment to remember much else.

He recalled Jiraiya, appearing beside him with a crowd of monks that had no doubt sprinted up the overgrown path as soon as the news had caught on. Their jubilation, however, was rooted elsewhere.

“You did it, kid,” Jiraiya said. “You did it.”

As they turned to leave, giving the clearing one last nostalgic glance, Three shouted out after them.

“I know what happened,” she said. “That Obito killed my grandfather.”

Minato’s stomach dropped.

Three smiled. “Tell him, please, that he forgives him.”

* * *

 

Boruto and Naruto arrived home before Sakura, Shikamaru, and Kakashi. They beat them by three days.

The hospital staff, taxed and terrified and far out of their league, gaped in horror and shock and surprise as Naruto sat up, looked across the room, and cast an uneasy smile at his wide-eyed wife.

When Boruto was next to rise, tugging at the chains on his wrists with a frown, the staff erupted into uproarious excitement.

Even as Hinata gripped him and held him tight to her chest in a hug so bone-crushing he couldn’t breathe, a throbbing thought echoes through his mind, kept him still, and sent his heart surging in his chest at a pace that rivaled even his mother’s.

“We’re home,” he murmured into her embrace.

“You never left,” Hinata said back. “Not really. Not ever.”


	22. Chapter 22

Six months later, the dust settled.

Six months later, after all the paperwork and all the rebuilding and all the patient speeches to impatient crowds, Minato Namikaze celebrated the end of his first year in office. The village threw a festival, and Minato watched from the top of the Hokage Office as the fourth face on the Monument was unveiled in a frenzy of applause and cheer.

Six months later, Kakashi and Obito left with Jiraiya on an excursion around the world. Minato and Kushina watched from the village gates as they disappeared into the haze of a muggy fall afternoon, three silhouettes casting dark shadows down the beaten path. Even from a distance Minato could see Kakashi swiping at Obito out of Jiraiya's view, and the other swiping right back. He smiled. Obito was troubled, for certain, but all things change with time.

Six months later, Minato explained his bizarre, sudden appearance in the Tsuchikage's office over a bottle of sake, and after enough drinks the tiny man was eager to forgive him.

Six months later, the Hidden Sea Village and the Hidden Leaf Village formally ratified a peace treaty between their two nations. Minato remembered Three; remembered her strength and courage and tenacity despite the odds. He wrote as much in his journal that evening before bed – then, after realizing his mistake, crossed out the word "Three" and replaced it with "One".

Six months later, after two mysterious shinobi appeared in his office and threw his life into disarray, Kushina gave birth to a boy with blond hair, whiskers on his cheeks, and a fire in his eyes.

They named him Naruto.

* * *

**BLONDING**

MMXVII

J.K.M. / ENDOPLASMICPANDA

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright! Time to square away a few things. Apologies for the long-ass author's note, but it's necessary.
> 
> First and foremost, I want to say thank you so much, from the bottom of my heart, for reading this far and for finishing. It means a lot to me - more than you can ever possible know.
> 
> There will not be a sequel.
> 
> There will, however, be an epilogue.
> 
> I will not be posting the epilogue until after I have finished editing the first 12 chapters. My writing changed so drastically as I wrote Blonding that you can almost mark where I made significant leaps in skill level. Because of that, I want to bring this fic - my first completed fic - up to a bit of level standing. I still consider this to be a first draft of a novel - and as such, it needs to be edited more. Once I've posted the epilogue, which may be a few weeks, you'll know that I've finished it properly.
> 
> I understand, however, that there are folks that will want to reread this draft of Blonding, which is the original draft. As such, I will be providing an epub download link to this draft over on [My Tumblr](http://endoplasmicpanda.tumblr.com/blonding). If you don't see a site up yet when you first go there, don't worry; I'm still in the process of putting it together. I'll also include some fun stats - like time spent in-doc on Word, for example.
> 
> A few people have expressed interest in writing fics/drawing fan art based in this world. I am more than okay with that. All I ask is that you let me know so I can read it! (I'll also put up a link to all derivative works on the dedicated tumblr page).
> 
> A special thank you, thank you, thank you to my fabulous betas. LisayaTomago and Infamous Storm deserve just as much credit as I do for all the hard work they've put in to making this fic presentable.
> 
> If you haven't left a review before, I ask you from the bottom of my heart for to do so. I want to know your thoughts on so many things - did you like my OCs/original world? Did you like the characterization? Any one character you liked over the rest? Would you be interested in reading original fiction from me should I ever decide to start writing it? things like that - and since this is the end, there's no better time. Please; sometimes readers don't realize how important reviews are to authors. Sometimes they're all that keeps us going. It doesn't have to be anything massive; just one simple line will do.
> 
> Again, thank you for reading. Eyes Wide Shut, my formerly-secondary-now-primary focus, will be continuing shortly.
> 
> See you around. I love you all.  
> -Endo


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